Moving On, In Hindsight, and Predicting the Future of Art

1. Moving forward, ano ba dapat ang artist?

IN TV host and social critic Lourd de Veyra's show on AksyonTV called Word of the Lourd, the host tackled the recent brouhaha over an installation art displayed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, a brouhaha instigated by the media and taken up mainly by devotees of the Roman Catholic faith. My distant cousin Lourd, whom I constantly applaud with much aplomb on this his show, implied a preference for "moving on," however, which caught my questioning attention. He intimated that the country has bigger problems to tackle than this, this being an issue in art, that field far removed from the concerns of mainstream society. Here's that video:

     I do not mean to judge or make assumptions about my cousin's stance or stand on the issue itself, pero "Let's move on" ang operative formula na ina-apply ng marami nating kababayan sa mga isyung hindi natin nareresolba/mareresolba o di kaya ayaw nating resolbahin.

     Sinasabi ko ito dahil, sa isang perspektibo, may mga facet ng isyu akong nakikita kung saan puwede kang mag-apply ng resolusyon. Hindi rin ako sang-ayon na nagkakamali ang media tuwing tinutuligsa o tsinitsismis nito ang "maliliit" na bagay na hindi pinapansin ng masa, dahil ang mga journalists, tulad ng mga tsismoso, ay may kani-kanyang political agenda o socio-educational mission na ayon sa kanilang mga kultura o kaalaman o di kaya bias, at ang mga agenda o misyon at kaalaman o di kaya bias na ito ay makikita nating worth talking about, actually, kahit nilalabas nila ito sa maliliit na bagay lamang.

     Off the bat, isipin natin ang isang facet nitong malaki o maliit na isyu na 'to. Ang tanong: ang exhibition bang ito ay magiging malaking isyu ng journalismo at intelligentsia tungkol sa estado kung ito ay hindi state-sponsored art or at least state-facilitated art dahil dinisplay sa isang state-sponsored na venue, ang CCP? Kung ito'y dinisplay sa Ayala Museum, mag-rarally lamang ang mga konserbatibong deboto ng Simbahang Katoliko laban sa artist, sa curator, at sa mga Ayalas, di ba, at ang mga Ayalas lamang ang magiging malaking isyu. Wala nang pagreresign-in na mga otoridad ng CCP. (Sabagay, malaking isyu na rin iyon kung may nagtangkang sunugin ang Ayala Museum kung sa Ayala Museum nga nai-display ang Poleteismo ni Mideo Cruz).

     Sang-ayon ako, actually, na maraming malalaking problema ang naungkat ng exhibition. Isa na ro'n ang problema ng attitude ng estado towards institutionalized religion. Isa rin do'n ang problema ng pagdedesisyun nito sa kung saan dapat tinatapon ang pera ng bayan at sa kung saan hindi dapat. Panahon na na ang isang liberal na gobyerno ay magsabi na ang pera ng estado ay hindi dapat nakikialam sa pagtutulak ng art, sa dahilang ito'y nag-aaksaya lamang ng pera ng bayan sa pinaborang artists, maging mga kaibigan ko man sila o hindi. Panahon na rin na ang artist ay hindi maging artist na boses ng estado o isang rehimen/administrasyon kundi artist ng sarili niyang pagkatao bilang indibidwal o miyembro ng isang niche ng lipunan na gumagalaw independente sa suporta ng estado.

     As a corollary argument, kung censorship din lang ang pag-uusapan, may karapatang i-censor ng estado ang anumang art na ginastusan o ginagastusan ng pera nito. Kahit sa lighting man lang, or after the fact of the artmaking. Karapatan, I mean, na sa papel ay hindi ideal, lalo sa isang maka-demokrasya at maka-Konstitusyon na lipunan na dapat ay bukas sa lahat ng uri ng boses o pananaw, subalit totoo namang nangyayari pagdating sa mga aksyon ng mga screening committees. At depende na rin lang sa uri ng estado na gumagawa ng censorship: ito ba ay isang mapanupil na rehimen o liberal na gobyerno na gusto lamang i-censor ang mga materyal ng anti-democracy voices.

OO NGA. Bumisita si dating First Lady Imelda Marcos, ang asawa ng dating diktador na si Ferdinand Marcos, sa CCP exhibition, at ang ngayo'y isa nang Representative ng House of Representatives ay naglabas ng kanyang pagkamuhi sa nasabing installation project.

     Pero, in relation to Imelda's oft-quoted slogan "the true, the good and the beautiful," coming as it seems from the perspective of a royalist ideology, tingnan naman natin ang sarili nating mga konsepto ng truth, goodness at beauty from our own respective contending ideologies. I-iimpose din ba natin ang atin sa bayan? Sasabihin din ba natin sa tao na magbayad sila ng buwis para masustentuhan nila ang mga art at artists na may bersyon ng ating truth, ng ating goodness, ng ating beauty ayon sa ating ideology? Kung oo ang sagot natin, ano ngayon ang pinagkaiba natin kay Imelda?

     Bilang isang social liberal at isa ring kritiko ng ilang Roman Catholic policies at doctrines, dapat akong magdiwang sa tapang ng artist na si Mideo Cruz at ng mga art sponsors niya (curator, etc.). Subalit ayokong gawin ang ginagawa sa akin ng mga kalaban ko sa argumento (mula sa fundamentalismo ng institutionalized religion)---ang magdiwang tuwing nasasagot ako habang nakasandal sa poder ng ideloyohiya o teyolohiya na kumakalinga sa kanila, dahil alam kong dapat wala ang poder na iyon sa likod nila habang tumatakbo ang demokratikong argumentasyon. In short, wala silang threats na "patawarin ka sana ng Diyos" o "gabaan ka sana" na maririnig sa akin mula sa aking secular na punto de vista. At bakit ko nasabi ito? Dahil sa side naman ni Cruz, poder ng state art ang sinasandalan niya, at---sa pag-aming may karapatang masaktan ang relihiyon---ayokong sumandal sa poder ng sekyularismong iyon na kasalukuyang pinamamahalaan ng isang diumano'y social liberal na gobyerno. Dahil forever bang pag-aagawan ng mga ideologies o theologies ang CCP at National Commission for Culture and the Arts? O, in the US' case, forever bang pag-aagawan ang National Endowment for the Arts ng mga liberals, religious conservatives at Tea Party-ites? Ano kaya kung itumba na lang natin ang mga pinag-aagawan na 'to? Kung tayo, bilang mga social liberals (o Christian o atheist progressivists man) ay nakikiagaw kay Imelda, ang stalwart ng Philippijne royalist ideology, wala tayong pinagkaiba sa kanya. Pare-pareho tayong gustong magdikta ng ating malamang estetiko sa buong bansa.

     Dahil bagamat ako ay isang social liberal, alam ko rin na ang liberals ay hindi ang buong bayan. Kung ang ating asta ngayon ay, "kaming mga liberal ang hari ngayon, hawak namin ang CCP ngayon, kami ang masusunod, art namin ang masusunod," aba, huwag tayong magrereklamo kung sa mga darating na taon na si Bongbong Marcos naman ang presidente, ay sabihin niyang "o, mga royalist na naman ang may hawak ng CCP ha, art naman namin ang masusunod. Back off kayo." (This is assuming, of course, that Bongbong Marcos won't surprise us with a future sudden reconfiguration of his person from being a defender of his father's record to being a real champion of the masses and the country's coffers' integrity and strength, should that be possible.)

      We should not weary in the eternal struggle of raising self-critical banners. Just as we won't with a possible hundred years of war with un-self-critical fanatics, given that a state of civil war might be acceptable to many if that's what would wake us up to the virtue of democratic tolerance. So, today while debate is still possible, and debating with oneself won't necessarily be by virtue of a gaslighter's effort but by one's own scruples, so I'd say, that even if I were the lucky type who often gets my way, I'd still be against state sponsorship of my art and art profession. For state sponsorship is at the very heart of the Mideo Cruz piece, even if all the state did was provide Cruz a space with gallery lighting! On this issue, at least, I'm one with Newt Gingrich. LOL.

     But yet, also be aware that many US Republicans don't exactly want the NEA abolished. They just want it governed by conservatives who would put up evangelical art. If they can have it their way, they won't want to get rid of state sponsorship of the arts and the arts profession. They won't be one with Newt Gingrich.
     At, finally, sa debate tungkol sa piece ni Cruz, sa bandang akin lang naman: kung may poder man ang secularism na gusto kong sandalan sa anumang argumento tungkol dito, ito ay hindi sa pagdikta nito ng sekyularismo bilang haven ng panginginsulto sa relihiyon kundi sa pagdikta nito ng prinsipyo ng demokrasya na nagbibigay ng kalayaan kanino man na manginsulto kanino man. 

2. In hindsight, what is art, who is it for, at ano ang matalinong art?

STRANGE THAT in novelist F. Sionil Jose's philSTAR.com column titled Hindsight, he would have had the opportunity to get a "perfect view in hindsight" (two weeks after the controversial CCP exhibition opened) and yet came up with nothing original, nothing different from what the protesters against the exhibition had to say (were continuing to say). In short, it was as if Jose was out with it merely to announce on which side he was, and taking the case of the protesters instead of the exhibition's supporters' side (or the supporters-of-the-exhibition's-rights' side), at least in the query area of whether the exhibited installation art was art or not. He clearly voiced his support for the protesters through the title of his column article, "The CCP Jesus Christ exhibit: It ain't art".

     Ahem. Okey. Mga kaibigan, naalala ko tuloy.

     Isang araw kasi noon, nagpatugtog ang kaibigan kong FM radio deejay ng Pearl Jam grunge sa radyo nila, kaya tanong ng station manager niya, "ba't yan ang pinapatugtog mo? Mawawalan tayo ng listeners nyan." What did my friend do? Did what was expected of him, played the '70s folk-rock band America's "A Horse with No Name" followed by James Taylor's "Your Smiling Face." "Yan ang rock," sabi ng station manager. Pagdating ng dapithapon, nag-inuman kami ng kaibigan ko at buong gabi naming tinalakay ang definition ng rock music. Napunta kami sa new wave music, kung saan chinallenge ang idea ng pagka-rock nang walang electric guitar, at sa kung saan-saang dako pa ng genre-fication. Kinaumagahan, nung ako'y magising sa aking hangover, isa lang ang na-realize ko. May isang milyong definition ng rock music. Pero nakatulog lang uli ako, at doon naman sa dako ng aking paglalakbay habang tulog, napaniginipan ko si Prof. John Lennon na minumura ang estudyanteng si Kurt Cobain. Sabi niya, "ano ba yang pinaggagagawa mo, Cobain? Pakinggan mo ang 'Woman' ko. Ganyan gumawa ng kanta, okey?" . . . Uhm, pa'no ba alisin ang hangover? Uminom na uli ng isa pang bote pagkatapos sumuka? Parang ganon nga yata. Uh, you were saying?

     Where was I? Ano bang argument pa ang sasabihin ko sana? Oh, yes. Sabi ng isang Facebook friend of a friend, "Unfortunately, the intolerant side won't even let you finish a sentence by instantly pushing the usual 'shut up', 'bobo', 'bastos', or, worse, the 'gaba-an' threat as well as death threats." Tuloy ng kaibigan ng kaibigan ko, "It baffles me how anyone can just throw the word 'bobo' around when you need several intelligence tests to accurately come up with a conclusion. Even then you need to establish if these tests are culture-fair pa, and then there's EQ vs IQ . . . "

     Where was I? Oh, yes. Sa bus nung isang gabi, sumakay ang isang barkada ng mga estudyanteng high school. Ang lalakas ng boses! Sabi ng isa, "si ma'am yun." "Gago, hindi si ma'am yun," sabi naman nung isa. "Si ma'am yun, bobo." "Ulol, kitang-kita ko ng mga mata ko, gago ka ba?" "Tarantado ka," sabi ng isa, sabay batok sa kaibigan habang sila'y nagtatawanan, "hindi ako gago, 'no. Alam ko ang hitsura ni ma'am, tanga ka pala e." . . . Mahabang kuwento 'to, pero sa madaling salita, dumating din sila sa kanilang paroroonan, silang maiingay na mga gago, at wala namang nagalisan o nasabunutan ng buhok. Buti pa ang mga high school, sabi ko sa sarili ko, pag gumagamit ng mga salita galing sa social science, walang intolerance. Lahat ng "bobo," "gago" at "tanga" ay kaibigan.

     But, to be fair, Jose never used the word "stupid." Instead, he only used the words "immature," "juvenile," "ridiculous," and phrases like "lack imagination," "don't think hard enough," among other implied hellfire of judgmental language.

     Hanggang dito na lang ba ang usaping ito? Sa side ni Jose o ng kanyang kinikilingan ay ang truth o artistic truth, at ang kabilang side ay ang kabobohan? The name of the Truth, the Good, the Beautiful . . . Amin?

     Ang sinasabi pa ni Jose, ang artwork installation art daw dito sa exhibition in question ay copied art, lacking in imagination or originality. A gimmick, then! And should go back to the drawing board.

     Where was I? Oh, yes. Isang gabi, nag-daydream ako na isa akong critic na kelangan me sulatin. Di ko alam saan ako magsisimula. Ah, biglang sabi ng epiphany area ng aking utak, may titirahin akong mga derivative art. Ewan ko kung ano ang nangyari, pero napunta ang panaginip ko sa pinagsasasakmal ko ang isang derivative art sa di ko alam na dahilan. Oo, hindi ko alam ang dahilan. Hindi ko alam. Ang alam ko lang, wala akong sinabi sa sangkaterbang iba pang derivative art, o sa sarili kong derivative art. Para akong tambay sa kanto na may nakursunadahang iisa lamang, at di ko alam ang dahilan.

     Now, it may be that no one's awaiting my opinion on this, but let me just clarify to those who have stumbled into this that, in contrast to Mr. Jose's unclarified position, I'm neither on the side of the Church of Caiaphas (which is what I've come to call the Catholic Church authorities' recent temple of corrupt behavior under Gloria Arroyo's previous government) nor on the side of the sons of Christian aniconism. I'm just a man on a bus petting a historical hangover.

PARDON MY attempts at wit. Wit is a 1995 play and 2001 movie about cancer.

     I mean, God forbid the Gabâ (instant or imminent bad karma). Or death threats. And so I say to you, to Christians like myself (cafeteria Christian though I am) there ought to be no death, no darkness, no end to the Christian perspective. And yet we put out with holy water the fire we stoke for Joans of Arc? Nakaka-puzzle ang death threats (o ang mga tipong death sentences ng Opus Dei sa mga nobela ni Dan Brown hahaha), dahil dapat hindi parusa ang sickness o death sa Christian philosophy. Ito kaya ay patunay lamang na maraming Christian gurus kuno ang walang pakialam sa mga turo ng kanilang libro at hero?

     "Sana gaba-an kayo," sigaw ng mga deboto, gayung sabi ng kanilang hero, "love your enemies." Tama nga naman si Hero. Di ba't ang iprinopose niya noong thesis ay ang anti-thesis sa Ancient Roman philosophy of Might? Sabi ni Hero, hindi Might for Might, kundi Love ang magpapatumba sa kaharian ng Tiyuhin ni Caligula.

     Pero tila mali ang metaphor natin dahil lalabas dito na ang iilang iconoclasm ngayon ay gawa ng mga pagano at "Romano" ng ating panahon. Di ba't si Hero mismo ay ang iconoclast ng Judaismo ng kanyang panahon? "Wala akong pakialam sa sinasamba nyong Templo ng kabuktutan," tila sabi niya noon, "itutumba ko yan at papalitan ko sa loob ng tatlong araw."

     Dapat na nga yatang tumbahin ang CCP ng "Caiaphas-approved art lamang ang puwede at ipapako sa krus ng media ang susuway." Itayo muli ang "templo ng tao at ng puso" na hindi gawa ni Imelda kundi ng bawat simpleng bato sa kanto! At dapat hindi ang The Rock ang punong-kritiko!

PARDON MY attempts at wit. Dahil sasabihin lang ng mga deboto, aha! ang witty sa sineng Wit ni Mike Nichols ay namatay sa cancer, buti nga. Gabâ. Ang isa pang friend of a friend na nag-witty mimic sa exhibition art na pinag-uusapan natin dito ay biglang na-ospital dahil sa isang pamamaga sa mukha. Isang supporter ng exhibiting artist in question ang isinugod sa ospital ang anak. Well, let me say this. Lahat ng tao---may sabihin man laban sa Simbahan o wala---ay nagkakasakit o namamatay. Kaya nagtataka ako kung bakit itunuturing na Gabâ ang sickness at death, lalong-lalo na ng mga deboto na dapat ay unang nakaaalala sa mga turo ng kanilang martir na nagpakamatay sa mga pahina ng Bagong Testamento.

     Should this attitude towards Gabâ or retribution among the Church's faithful to be viewed as a koan cum puzzling paradox, Christianity's history being replete---as I said---with a constant involving the burning of its own people whom it would later pronounce as its saints? Jesus of Nazareth himself, let me repeat, was an iconoclast at Caiaphas' Church.

PARDON THE depth of my subtext. My bad. History makes bad ad copy. Unless, of course, its strategy is to provoke questions. And my friend, the veteran journalist-activist Sylvia Mayuga, says there's good news about the CCP. That "things are changing as we speak; issues are being clarified, starting with ourselves." Well, remains to be seen in what direction of defining goodness it has chosen to move towards. For, putting aside my usual contention against the state's role in supporting art-making activities beyond museums and libraries maintenance, I could cite an example of an ill-advised direction.

     A friend of Mayuga's echoed and reiterated lines of argument coming from those whose moral standpoint have been offended by the art in question.

     "Freedom is not absolute . . . carries with it a sense of responsibility," says one recurring line. This is true, and that is the reason why we have laws, statesmen, legislators and lawyers on the one hand and warlords and assassins on the other. The "one hand" as well as "the other" provide society with the parameters, the "one hand" with the letter and/or wisdom of the law and the state, the "other hand" with violent/death threats and/or their quick implementation.

     And, true, the artist must have a sense of responsibility. But firstly a responsibility to himself and his cause, be it the cause of evangelical art, Marian art, punk art, bad art, or whatever. Restraint must be, but in fact is, part and parcel of the process of art-making itself wherein decisions of what to include and what not to include are a constant. But the question now is: who should nudge an artist's propensity to allow excess or shyness, himself or the state? Who shall have the post of The Measurer of excess or non-excess? Him? Me? You? Your mother? F. Sionil Jose? The Pope? The majority? The minority? The individual? Those are the questions.

     "Junk art is no art," true. Unless your art is "junk art" (subgenre of "found art"), which---after the conscious self-labeling or admission of the label---might qualify an art genre category assignation unto itself, and thus to be read according to this genre's elements and terms. It escapes Jose that in the same way the sonnet is its own art enjoyed differently from the way one enjoys the art of the epic poem, so installation art is its own niche art and language different from the artistic language of craft-driven photorealist painting. So, abstract expressionism and minimalist art are their own painting genres with concerns and ironies different from the concerns and ironies of a, say, religious hyper-realist work. This, in the same way that noise rock is an artistic musical genre with elements and a thesis separate from and independent of the standards and thesis of easy-listening Bing Crosby. So, therefore, the question now is: Who shall be appointed to the post of being the measurer of "artful"-ness and "artless"-ness among the different arts and their approaches to the enjoyable, their artistic languages, their theme treatment concerns, their ironies, their elements that comprise their language, their standards? Critics? Artists themselves, as their own best critics? Me? You? Your mother? F. Sionil Jose of PEN International? The Pope? Catholics? The Opus Dei? Protestants? Gnostics? Agnostics? Aniconists? Engineers? Psychiatrists? Haute cuisine chefs? Manicurists? Those are the questions.

     "Ethos" and "merit" were words waved by Mayuga's friend. But these concepts shall forever be debated on the surface of the earth as well as in the bunkers, and liberals and conservatives (in society and in art) shall forever be at each other's throat over these. Bearing this in mind, one can now go out into the day and clearly decide on his responsibilities---responsibilities to his faith, to his politics, or to his art.

     Well, okay, some others would say responsibility to the state, to the majority, or to his death-threatened family, but I would leave that to the bearer of his own mind who, in the end, will have to make up his own mind, . . . whether he decides on his responsibilities at the point of a gun or the point of resolving an artistic or thematic point.

I HAVE always been of the belief that free society has encumbered the individual with responsibilities that go with his freedom. The individual has to exercise his sense of measure in his quest for survival within the laissez-faire traffic of thoughts and decisions and actions in the social environment consisting too of others' freedoms. And so, in this society, responsibility readily resides in the individual. However, the state, for as long as it subscribes to the tenets of democracy that seek to protect the freedom of the individual, would have enacted laws that affirm as well as protect the equal freedoms of each one. Thus, freedom of expression, thus freedom of religion, and so on and so forth. Ideally in a free society, a society such as what the United States' laws and many European countries' laws seek to maintain, the state only interferes when an exercise of one's freedom hinders another's. For instance, one may deem it his right to cross any part of the highway at any time of the day, which may in turn hinder vehicle owners' right to a free-flowing highway devoid of potential human roadkill. The state would, and often does, interfere in such simple problematiques. However, when one spits on the name of a religion or a religious practice without hindering that religion from exercising its freedom to exist, it should be a no-brainer that the state cannot and must not interfere. Thus, the UK did not find it difficult to say that Salman Rushdie, who many Moslems deemed insulting, had the right to insult, even as the state did not share his "insult" (many mosques are allowed to exist in England).

     And so, now, we go to a suggestion to put up authority bodies akin to the Union of Soviet Writers passing judgment on the oppressive works of the Alexander Solzhenitsyns of our place and time. Regulation of artistic practice is being peddled as an attractive notion. Does this notion negate the ideal of a free society? I believe it does.

     True, when I agreed above that individual freedom does have its responsibilities, I did not only mean to allude to such Karl Popperian dictums on an open society as the individual's duty to be aggressive with his opinions while always on the ready to accept his obsolescence, I also meant to allude to the individual's sense of measure, restraint, and other social considerations. This sense may include such choices as civility, giving the other space to save face, avoiding provoking emotional limits, and so on. But in no way was I implying that I'd be in on the idea of forming authority bodies to police individual freedom. Thus my question, "who will decide for the individual, your mother?"

     The Union of Soviet Writers was one such "collegial body" as those being suggested for the Philippine democratic environment. It was appointed by the Soviet state to police individual writers. But it was perfectly understandable for the Soviet Union to come up with that, because the then-Union's concept of democracy was not intended for the individual but only for the collective. I, as a poet and fiction writer and blogging critic as well as a citizen of this republic, spit on the idea of any Philippine collective or committee deciding for the individual. Certainly we have fellow artists and fellow citizens as well as critics and self-appointed critics on blogs who have been given by the state their own freedom to denounce and malign an artist, but the denounced artist's own rights cannot be trampled on by their own respective freedoms.

OH YES, certainly there is that other option in a free society that is also mentioned as an ultimate course of action for those who've been offended by the CCP exhibition. Yes, indeed, there is always that option for legislators to turn the state into freer atmospheres or less free atmospheres.

     In the United States, for instance, some Republicans have been demanding that the state sponsor evangelical prayers in public schools as well as the putting up of statues of stalwart evangelical leaders of the pioneering era in public school campuses. That is certainly going in the direction of more freedom for evangelical devotees at the expense of Moslems, Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, and so on, who are themselves paying their taxes to the state. Do states do this kind of stuff at all? Yes, they do this all the time. And that is why there is always a see-saw of leaderships in the history of democracies, also because of citizens' demand for either more freedom or less freedom for others as time progresses or regresses. In our own state and time, for instance, we do not allow the freedom of the pornographer to exercise pornography, at least on paper. We do not recognize homosexuals' right of access to civil marriage. But at the same time, we have other freedoms that other democratic states don't have. Hundreds of barangay governments allow dog owners to turn our streets into canine toilets. Local peanut butter manufacturers are not policed by aflatoxin level guidelines. Philippine companies are allowed to discriminate against jobseekers by reason of their sex, religion or age.

     And so it is up to us as a nation of citizens, either by plurality voting perhaps or by the power of reason and mutual respect as per the decision of our representative democracy, to decide whether we want more freedom or less freedom in certain areas of our social existence and co-existences. Many do demand more "order," as some of those anti-CCP exhibition guys would put it, while many others also demand more freedom, recognizing perhaps that there is (or can be) order in the plurality of voices in our land. While some of the latter would allow that they might consider the requirements of civility in criticality, others are firm in their conviction that even such exercises as radical aniconism, iconoclasm and even downright artistic insults in the practice of an art have a place in an ideal democracy.

     Again, it is up to us as free individuals cum collectives of a free nation and open society to decide now whether we wish to diminish or expand our neighbor's roster of freedoms. And ponder, likewise, the consequences of any reduction or regulation both on them and ourselves.

NOW, CERTAINLY I could not avoid mentioning above the notion of violence and death threats resorted to as options by certain individuals in our society. For the very reason that THESE WERE RESORTED TO in the case of Mideo Cruz by certain apologists, I believe, of the Roman Catholic Church. Some say these threats were an Opus Dei crusade's signature, others say these were merely prank calls by Cruz's personal enemies. Whatever they were, they were there.
     And to assume---in Cruz's defense---that these external dynamics (death threats, and so on) are not part of the art is precisely to go back to the New Criticism belief in the integrity of the artwork ("what pertains only to the artwork") independent of the social space the artwork inhabits or invades. Remember that this social space ultimately owns the artwork as per this space's interpreters' majority take on the art. And while this independence of the art object is also called forth---by those denouncing Cruz's art---for a judgment of the artist qua artist, as if to claim they are merely judging the art as art (its integral elements) so to qualify its failure as art, those guys also clearly contradict themselves by calling in such writings as a George Steiner essay on literature, society and the inhuman or such lines as those from Albert Camus on moderation and excess, calling these good discourses on the "reach of literature" and "(by extension, art)". Incidentally, if I remember my Camusian and Sartreian existentialism correctly, wasn't it a philosophy that tried to throw responsibility back to the individual away from the state and moral authorities? Wasn't Camus' The Fall a portrait of one such moral authority in the process of questioning his own morality?

"WHAT'S THE bottomline?" the friend of my friend asked. "If we're to establish limitations on art and its expression, why? Is it at all possible to simplify matters into pros and cons/cost-and-benefit analyses? Are our fears and concerns about not putting limits on expression valid or not?"

     "May cons siyempre, pare," sabi ko. "If you're pro-X, you're bound to hear extreme pronouncements against your stand from anti-X and pro-Y folks. But the pros of an open society outnumber the cons. No one will stop you from putting out your own pronouncements against the stand of the anti-X and pro-Y. Most important of all, while it is hard to listen to the outbursts of a position in conflict with yours, it is far harder to live in a place where we keep each other from talking."

     Let me put up this proposal, I continued. What if we follow our other friend's suggestion and start applying that on Facebook, wherein a committee will have to review all opinions bordering on insults before one can press the Enter key. You want to try that experiment? Okey ako ro'n. But we should all be ready with the consequences. There will be a struggle to occupy seats in that committee, and God knows where it might all lead. Northern Ireland? Constantinople once again?

     "What I don't get here is why these lawmakers are putting more stock in prosecuting someone who supposedly 'hurt' sensibilities, totally overlooking the fact that somebody else actually threatened his life, destroyed property, and attempted to commit arson---what if the CCP burned to a crisp because of what he did? So it's perfectly understandable for people to threaten someone's life, maybe even take his life and burn his property if 'sensibilities' are offended?"

     Yan ang problema sa batas na yan na nagsasabing di mo puwedeng insultuhin ang anumang relihiyon, habang binibigyan natin ang relihiyon ng karapatan na insultuhin ang sinumang indibidwal, sabi ko. Ang isa pang problema dyan, wala akong alam na legislator na hindi beholden sa relihiyon at sa hatak ng boto ng institutionalized religion. Kung meron man, iilan ang sasama sa kanya sa pagpanukala na ibasura ang may kiling na batas na ito?

3. Art from now on, ano ba?

WE ARE all Barthes.

     But first, my friend the painter Marcel Antonio is right, the artist has the responsibility to manage the contextualities and impending contexts of his art, even---or specially---when the artist intends a free contextualization of his imagery vis a vis a plural or potentially antagonistic society. We might recall the machinations of absurdist plays, which---while they pronounced the absurdity of existence---yet were structured in such a way as to communicate those absurdities, in essence negating absurdness by packaging absurdities in consumer-friendly tetra paks within the library of orderly categorizations. Some absurdists were aware of that contradiction.

     Yet Mideo Cruz is also right in saying he can't control the audience, taking---I'd like to think---after Roland Barthes' extremist (?) assumption that each man reads a thing differently or that a man can read a thing in various different ways at various different times. Still, Marcel might still ask Mideo, "did you intend to control the audience in the first place?"

     I know where Marcel is coming from. We might take as an example the marketing of CDs or movies. A US version of a rock star's album would be tweaked to include another song in exchange for a removed song for its UK release. A band would refuse to play a popular song of theirs in certain areas of the world for reasons sometimes only privy to their managers and promoters. A Filipino movie that premiered in LA might be retitled and resubtitled for Cannes. In short, artists or their managers do manage contexts or impending contexts. Even Mitsubishi decided to do away with the name Pajero on one of their vehicles for Spain's market, understanding that in Spain "pajero" is the slang term for a wanker.

     Still, Mideo by Barthes would be right, for managers are sometimes surprised when their tweakings result in more controversy rather than the pacific atmosphere their engineering minds expected to find.

     So, what does this Mideo Cruz affair finally give us as a final context?

     Let us consider the absence of the old New Criticism approach to the artwork as integral to itself removed from the authority of the artist. Think, for example, what might have happened had Cruz died of dengue after putting up his art project without anybody except CCP authorities knowing about this "departure." Certainly we would still be screaming for the artist's explanation, placing that absence in the context of the art, say, as manifestation of fear and guilt. Later, we may become aware of the artist's demise. We would then find ourselves recontextualizing the art with that outside "old/new" reality attached: with, say, the artist's "death as gabâ" context, for one.

     Yet others might crop up, shouting celebratory slogans, declaring Cruz a hero of aniconism or even an inspiration to the ire of Islamic terrorists (who may not read the Qur'an but) who dismiss all Christian icons as imageries of the infidel. Cruz would not be there to announce his distance from any such causes.

     Could Cruz's constant refusal to answer intent part and parcel of his art? Is he feigning ignorance in order to test the extent of the Filipino audience's ability to weigh things? Is he being a pollster-artist? We don't know.

     Whatever the artistic intent, what does this affair finally give us as its final context as it evolves in the culture and zeitgeist of our land, amidst our people's minds today?

     To me and my humble semiotics, it is finally a test on our democracy. It goes beyond mere questions of taste that say, "punk rock is just noise and Bing Crosby's is real music" or "this is bad art and Marian art is the pinot noir of Philippine artistic achievements." It asks, furthermore, questions on the role of icons in Philippine Christian worship, the role this worship plays in Philippine state laws, and the state of Philippine politics today in relation to religious hegemonies. That is to me the final achievement of Cruz's work. It could be that he didn't intend that, but like you and me, who in this debate had been interested in what the artist wanted to say?

     We are all Barthes.

NOW, WAY before Barthes was born (1915) there was Marcel's namesake, Marcel Duchamp. A urinal is supposedly a non-art, mundane boring item. Put that in a gallery, however, and it becomes poetry ("Fountain", 1917).

     Barthes proposed that the mind has its own galleries. Like Duchamp, we can pick any bad art or ugly art or tramp art and turn that into brilliant art according to the reading of our mental galleries' considerations.

     I wouldn't, for example, be surprised if Barthes announced this imagery above as illustrative of the Catholic Church's crucifixion of the penis on top of the Christ (albeit the penis is now hard as wood) in the Church's present campaign for abstention and against masturbation. The Christ, meanwhile, while used as cross is simultaneously miscast as behind all this penile crucifixion.

     Nor be surprised if Barthes is to invoke a feminist take on the image as representing institutionalized Christianity as that phallic, male-centric movement for gender mainstreaming. Which, incidentally, was what Cruz---in an online magaizne interview---actually said was what that artpiece was all about.

     But Barthes is his own Barthes, separate from the Barthes in the artist. Many of my fellow Catholic friends are a different collective-Barthes altogether, with their own take on things. Thus their declarations of wanting to take over the state and barricade the bill of rights for their rewriting, towards the reification of their metanarrative.

WHILE WE'RE on Barthes, I'd like to call attention to his The Pleasure of the Text, wherein he made an effort to demonstrate a way by which reading can escape both the clutches of the vicious Left and the bourgeois Right. His vehicle of choice? Hedonism. Further, in A Lover's Discourse, he sought to come up with rhetoric that would veer away from socially-dictated meanings. He would essentially fail in both of these efforts, however, in the same way that Mideo Cruz (assuming he's also on this same path) failed to extricate himself from social contexts in a punk-like hedonistic immersion in supposedly "socially freed" image-making.

     Still, the point is not so much in the success or failure of the effort. It is in the effort, which by itself presupposes the existence of social dictators of meaning from which one seeks to escape. The furor over the effort only braced the point of that hegemony's existence.

A FRIEND of several friends commented, "I'm getting tired of this whole Brouhaha! Couldn't people just get a life?"

     To which I said, "I wish the continuing furor over the art project (yet for exhibition elsewhere) by some Catholics and media personnel would listen to you and leave art alone to exercise its freedom to blaspheme anything and anyone. But, no, they had to help art get a boost and a new life in the popular stream by being its talent manager and designing this 'scandal'. They could've just ignored the artpieces and enjoyed Mompo wine with pesto bread and Parmiggiano-Reggiano cheese, after which they might have had all the time to have siesta before the next Day of Obligation mass to be attended by the mayor's daughters." They could have flaunted forgiveness instead of anger and hatred.

     Another friend of a friend of a friend, meanwhile, said, "The artist is mad at Christianity. There's a sure sign that it's in his system."

     To which I offered, "I cannot speak for the artist but I can speak for my own reading of the artworks, as only I could and perhaps should for those interested. For there is such a thing as 'aniconism in Christianity', in contrast to aniconisms elsewhere, which therefore makes it not an extra-Christian attitude but one which had been at work within Christianity. Its manifestations is most remembered in Early Christianity before 325 AD, in the Byzantine iconoclasms of the 8th and 9th centuries (730-787 AD and 814-842 AD), in 16th cenutry Calvinism, and in 16th and 17th century Puritanism, but is definitely present in our century most notably in Christian Fundamentalism. It might be more apt to say the artwork is 'mad at Christian imagery, especially Catholic imagery'."

     Now, assuming this reading of mine (one of a few other readings I could muster) jives with the artist's own intent, what now?

     It's about time artists wake up to the reality bite of The Death of the Author, if they haven't already. That death can be for real, without being literal. Because art from now on, in a more compartmentalized world, shall be that struggle between the artist's silence outside of his art and the collective audience's noise within their own metanarratives upon art.

• F. Sionil Jose photo borrowed from http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=716740&publicationSubCategoryId=79
• Art installation fragment photo borrowed from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2351116256560&set=a.1142395559298.22078.1209724241&type=1 

Aquino's and Everyone's Lacuna

THE NOYNOY AQUINO administration’s opponents had had quite a field day during the week of the Manila hostage crisis of August 23 and the week after. Apparent current spokesman for Gloria Arroyo’s presidency, Elena Bautista-Horn, released the most glorious claim no one else had had the daring for—that the bungled assault wouldn’t have happened had Arroyo been president. As for the Aquino party’s $54 hotdog lunch in Washington, she said, “That may be good for keeping travel costs low. For our part, we kept the number of hostage deaths down.” Never mind the beheadings in Mindanao, the disappearances the police couldn’t solve, the apparent executions in Quezon City by a police team, the internally and externally disputed police report on the Glorietta mall explosion, the Lakas Kampi CMD-Zaldy Ampatuan-Alberto Agra connection, among many other police- or DILG-related puzzles during Arroyo’s watch. Never mind those, because those aren’t the point. Or are they? Should they be the point?

photo borrowed from Inquirer.net

     Horn's claims are not surprising. In fact, Horn's attacks are the kind of attacks we should expect from the Arroyo party hereon in, to the next senatorial and presidential elections. You see, any “mistake” the present government is perceived by popular wisdom (or by broadcasters Erwin Tulfo or Mike Enriquez) to have made will be exploited by the current opposition as material for the propaganda war of politics, especially so as most people in government today and from the recent past put premium on political gains over governance. The aim of such voices as Horn’s is simple: get Lakas Kampi CMD back into the game and help it become the ruling party once more in the 2013 elections, and especially in the elections of 2016. The job, therefore, is to portray the Aquino government as inexperienced, inept, and whatever else popular wisdom would allow. If the sound bites accumulated are to prove not enough propaganda artillery for the coming campaigns to service such new warfront voices as Popoy Lagman’s Lakas-leaning brother’s, then just you wait—the Lakas Kampi CMD machine will patiently keep watch.

     And, lest you think it’s all going to be an exciting exchange concerning principles, well, it’s not really going to be that kind of battle, though everyone has principles (good and/or bad). It’s just going to be primarily a battle of propaganda sound bites, as I said. An example is Edcel Lagman’s complaint that Aquino’s State of the Nation Address this year didn’t even address the future of farmers. Anyone familiar with the news, present as well as recent, would be quick to note that that could not exactly have been a complaint of a cause, so to speak, for otherwise Lagman would already have been championing farmers’ plight during the height of the Fertilizer Fund scam under Arroyo’s government and or while other Arroyo-term farmer-related issues (like the rice over-importation issue) were hugging headlines. Party principles have been hogwash in this country, only sound bites seemingly have need for principles, at least for the duration of their delivery, and mp3 files of those sound bites or YouTube clips are more important hereabouts than e-books on history.

     So, expect the sound bites war to worsen as the Aquino administration marches on and 2013 looms.

BUT, FOR HIS TURN, what should Aquino do, given this not-so-impossible threat of a Lakas Kampi CMD return?

     Well, some other president might contemplate changing the charter (the Constitution) so he could extend his stay at the Palace beyond his term, or whatever else changes could be made to his advantage. Aquino, if he were that other president, might even contemplate designing an ambush or a mall bombing or a massacre to be able to declare martial law and proceed from there. Or, well, maybe something more novel than those already-gasgas scenarios from our mental History Channel.

     Here’s what I have to say about Aquino extending the term of his type of governance/government. For Aquino can actually change the country’s Governance Charter without changing the Government Constitution. Here is one way. . . .

BUT, FIRST, let me just note down this fact. Noynoy Aquino’s supporters had it wrong when they thought the Aquino triumph in the May elections was a signal moment for a historic turning point towards renewal and revolution in the life of the Filipino. Perhaps for a temporary turnaround, yes, but I dare say it’s not gonna last forever.

     Call me a liberal killjoy and a son of the gods of pessimism, but bearing witness to my killjoy attitude is the majority’s election of Aquino in May 2010 not really as the lord of social liberalism but primarily only as the persona with the celebrity potential that ran against the diminished value of Erap Estrada’s celebrity worth. It’s all been like a TV ratings poll, really, with the majority acting as casting directors for the tragic-comedy series called Bansang Pilipinas in its 112th season. As proof of that mere-entertainment valuation, consider the majority’s avoidance of a different manner of valuation, a more ideological form of valuation. It was an avoidance that found them not voting for Aquino’s senatorial candidates who arguably shared Aquino’s political/social/economic philosophy (excepting already familiar names like the Drilon and Guingona and Recto and Osmeña family names, being family names, and so names that should sound much like Padilla or Quizon or Cuneta-Concepcion of the showbiz-royalty-laden Pinoy star-studded mind that has in turn created a sort of feudalism of naked, meaningless names).

     So what am I saying? I’m saying this is proof enough of the freshness—in the eyes of the majority—of the liberal packaging that some (only some) Liberals’ supporters have been so crazy about on Facebook. To the Filipino majority, Liberal means nothing more than Tide or Sony or Coke and Pepsi, it’s just another naked brand. The majority is really, has always been, more interested in the brands and the new models of some old brand. And the parties don’t want to do anything to change all that, not even the President’s Liberal Party, it would sadly seem.

     Which should lead our present conversation to the next level, which is the level where we discuss the necessity of selling what needs to be sold for Aquino’s type of governance, for it to be able to extend its term.

AS I SAID, the potential for the return of Gloria Arroyo’s centrist or quasi-rightist or neo-liberal Lakas Kampi CMD, or Estrada’s pseudo-liberal or pseudo-progressivist Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino, into the national ship captain’s helm, five years or so from now, will get brighter as Aquino’s critics accumulate mistakes and “mistakes” to report on and successfully sell these to the intrigue-welcoming open media industry and media-opinion-worshipping masses. There is now the wide possibility of Lakas Kampi CMD’s return in the coming local elections in 2013, because this time it will be on the attacking end, exploiting the ideology-less and can’t-get-no-satisfaction masses’ momentary expectations of instant gratification.

     Impossible!—pro-Aquino optimists would tell us—because  a hefty number of local and national politicians formerly with the Lakas Kampi CMD’s approach to things are now with the Aquino camp’s approach to things, if not as Liberals, then at least as “program allies”. And there you go. Therein is the charm of the virtue of openness in our politics that nurtures the seeds of the averrhoa carambola (balimbing) like bees attacking flowers or squirrels the acorns. This balimbingism is not entirely due to politicians themselves, many of whom only ride the tradition for pragmatic reasons; it is often what our party-political system requires.

     Many a leader has in fact welcomed the advantage of this openness. The reform-minded Aquino camp itself exploited this openness for the furtherance and expansion potential of its support base during the pre-May election campaign period. Now in power, it has also rightly become like a softened Vatican open to the possibility of welcoming to its fold “rebellious” Francises of Assisis formerly allied with Gloria and Mike Arroyo’s heresy. And so it is as if we have become a nation replete of Miriam Santiagos who are open to the job of defending Erap Estrada’s policies today and Gloria Arroyo’s tomorrow, with everyone’s media-friendly Santiago-ish sound bites open for any partisan hiring. The media themselves ride on this circus; the sound bites make news which in turn rake in profits.

     It was more astounding in the other camps. Manny Villar of the Nacionalista Party exploited this openness during the election campaign by appropriating the integrity of both the Right and the Left for his party’s platform, a platform which was as abstract as a slogan for a bank’s TV ad or a World Bank press release brief. And the Right and the Left exploited the invitation in turn, again for pragmatic reasons. Lakas Kampi CMD, during their stint at the helm (which almost extended itself had it been given the chance to), also embraced the advantage of this openness, hauling in—to complete their roster of allies—such people as the former stalwart of liberal thrusts, Edcel Lagman (the brother of the slain leftist Popoy Lagman that we mentioned above), even while it advanced in what many in the media’s opinion-wielders regarded as Arroyo’s single-minded neo-liberal mission to rake in as many contracts for her party’s friends.

     So, how can Lakas Kampi CMD or the PMP possibly come back?—many Liberals are wont to ask. Simple. It’s been done before and it can be done again. As people in the past forgot the charges against Marcos and Estrada and accepted the possibility of their innocence, thus delivering Imee and Bongbong and Imelda to the august halls once again and almost delivered Erap instead of Aquino to Malacanang once again, so will the people forget all the charges against Gloria Arroyo’s government and accept the possibility of the Arroyo camp’s innocence. All the opposition has to do now is to bring the criticism and propaganda against Aquino’s camp on, and keep bringing it in to the media battlefront. The media will be all too happy to welcome any party’s headway in the marketing race to 2013 and 2016. The media, after all, are business entities whose first worry is the performance of their shows on the ratings wall, the country be damned.

SO, TO GET BACK to our topic now: how can Aquino’s camp avoid this return of its ideological nemeses and keep its ideological utopia on top? Will it fall into the same trap that Fidel Ramos and Gloria Arroyo and Erap Estrada attempted, which was—to repeat—the facile cop-out of changing the national government charter so terms can be extended, as if that would guarantee their parties’ long acceptance in the parliamentary runoffs? It remains to be seen. But there are possibly other ways. Here is one way.

     You see, dedicated though Aquino seems to be to his principles and aims and vision of good governance and an empowered populace, he can actually transform his own person too. Or transgress, if you will. And I don’t mean in the context of Richard Gordon’s and Bayani Fernando’s mutual “transformers” self-label that tickled some pink with the promise of an Olongapo- and Intramuros- and Marikina- and EdSA (or EdlSA)-looking archipelago. I mean into something more spiritual beyond the merely technical. I mean the transformation of his personality-selling to become the selling of a philosophy, a philosophy the people can take in like a religion instead of merely follow like a yellow traffic light sign because they like Noynoy’s yellow personality at the moment of its novelty.

     That transformation can actually be done if the Aquino administration gradually distances itself from the positioning of Aquino as mere redeemer of a people from a fleeting problematique into the positioning of Aquino as leader of a philosophy and religion. For all intents and purposes, Aquino’s philosophy can be deemed liberal, specifically social liberal, and not just because he now belongs to the Liberal Party of his father. And it is this philosophy that not just Aquino but his followers has to start selling if his type of administration and his type of followers are to maintain their position as the ruling ideological class of the present. The ideology is there, but it is still in need of a label and a selling scheme.

     Why do it? Firstly, not to do it is to say that only Aquino carries the Aquino spirit and belief, and so be damned his senatorial slate, let’s sell Aquino alone for only Aquino is Aquino and there is no other Aquino than Aquino himself. In contrast, to sell the Aquino philosophy as a movement with a specific set of transparent agenda is to sell the movement itself, of which Aquino is merely the charismatic celebrity symbol. To sell this philosophy is to transform Aquino from being a personality figure cum celebrity name into a mere synecdoche of a movement’s beliefs. To sell this philosophy, and free Aquino from the image that he is one of a kind, is to aid Aquino’s philosophy from the threat of dying with him when he begins to fade away. To sell his people’s and supporters’ philosophy is to sell a party, a movement, a dream army, complete with a hierarchy of leader-heirs who share the dream of the army.

     If the Aquino camp can succeed in selling to the public this philosophy label upon itself, and I don’t mean just the label or just the slogan that follows the label but the basic tenets of the camp’s beliefs and dreams, then Aquino would have been deemed served well in his possible dream of extending his term beyond 2016, free of the threat of the return of a contending political philosophy of governance or mal-governance. For with that marketing success will come the near-guarantee that the next Liberal Party senatorial and congressional candidates can carry themselves onstage as stars in their own right, not needing the shallow valuation of a casting-director majority with a weird sense of measure but only the determination of a visionary director of a dreaming majority with a sensible sense of measure.

     And, can PR and ad firms stand up to this challenge? Or would they, too, sell back to Aquino’s camp the virtue—whatever it is besides their facile personality-selling comfort zones—of the status quo marketing scheme.

IN WRITING this, I am of course also betraying my leaning towards the liberals and my seeming abhorrence for all things Lakas Kampi CMD. Betray like Judas likewise, for in exhorting the liberals to upgrade their market value, it is to be acknowledged that parties like Lakas Kampi CMD or the PMP can in fact initiate the same moves towards the same direction, even create some headway over a slow-to-decide liberal movement, selling their respective philosophies over and above the personalities that carry the party or movement or mission to which they belong.

     In short, this sermon-piece could be providing an advantage marketing view to just about any party that decides on this transgression of the traditional, should it be interested in extending itself beyond its present status into an expansive horizon which it can continue to serve or exploit.

     In the meantime, the masses—themselves devoid of philosophies—eagerly await a new religion as we speak, one that could physically and mentally deliver them from all evils. Should the liberals or the conservatives (neoliberals) fail to give them their due, God knows what Nazi group can easily fill in the lacuna.

Golf, a synecdoche of the land reform problematic

THAT tiny picture up there is a shot of the Hacienda Luisita Golf and Country Club, of course, but let's begin our story with a smaller symbol: Jun Lozada. Jun Lozada was hero of the year in 2008, hero qua symbol of penitence and reversed loyalty. He became the new Saint Paul the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines refused to champion during the Senate hearing on the NBN-ZTE scandal (which Gloria Arroyo's Department of Justice and appointed Ombudsman seemed to have wanted to turn into a hearing on Lozada's heresy in their turf instead). Luckily, the Jesuits of Ateneo de Manila University (or Ateneo de Manila, which is most likely its correct appellation) and the La Sallians of De La Salle University were there to protect Lozada's newfound saintliness.

     One thing we are forgetting, however, is the other Jun Lozada, the Jun Lozada who loved to play golf and live the high life. We saw in the bright camera lights Jun Lozada the truth-teller, the one who couldn't tell a lie, the dude who loved Jose Rizal. Today, we lay aside the fact that he was a penitent precisely because he used to be one of the privileged guys, raking in funds here and there for perks unbeknownst to you and me. He played golf and ate expensive "hamborjer" at that Wack Wack Golf and Country Club for the ones with wang-wanged SUVs. To dismiss this Lozadian facet is to dismiss Saint Paul's past and merely look at the saint as that brave expansionist for the Jesus club. To dismiss such facets is to forget to share Paul's and Lozada's repudiation of their respective pasts. To dismiss those is to dismiss that other significance.

NOW, I've seen great golfers and golf teachers talk on TV and I must say I have nothing but great admiration for their lot and the sport as a sport, especially for the men and women who've played those entertaining historic games on the sports cable channels. I've seen a Travel Channel take on the Scottish hills, on the origin of the sport, and can understand the game's relationship with the landscape (the Scottish landscape).

     However, there is something that Karl Marx taught everybody, and I mean everybody (in the same manner Che Guevara's One Latin-Am-ism or Guevarism taught everybody something, including the Interpol). I don't just mean the Marxist virtue of having a social security system or Government Service Insurance System or the Marxist entertainment to be derived from looking at the politics behind the production of an artwork. The Marxist lesson I'm talking about proclaims that in everything is politics, or, conversely stated, that there's politics in everything.

     And so, golf as a necessarily political presence in our pop culture must likewise be read as having a symbolic/semiotic value, and I mean a value within our polity (as against an intrinsic value independent of its surround which, in Marxist criticism, is a deny-er's cop-out). It is by this prompting that I must say golf as such, as a necessary semiotic signifier, deserves a second serious look beyond the analyses of ESPN. Never mind that Golf is often denigrated to mean "game off limits to females", since, apart from being untrue, there are today arguably more female golf athletes representing Asian women in the major circuit than there are men. Jennifer Rosales and Dorothy Delasin are familiar Filipina names in the LPGA, whereas a Filipino has yet to achieve a PGA championship.

     And never mind that in subcultural rock music society golf is frowned upon as a Republican game, nearly throwing eggs at Hootie and the Blowfish in the '90s and only forgiving the elderly Neil Young for being elderly.

     I'd like to encourage an independent assessment of the game's context today, in the Philippine setting, an assessment that is ideally non-partisan. And though I know there's been some opposition to golf in many countries including non-tropical ones like France and Japan and Scandinavia, I'd still be happy with having a look at how golf may represent a semiotic something, as it were, in the Philippine body politic worthy of our opposition to it as citizens living in the armpit regions.

     First, one of the basic complaints against the golfing sport derives from environmental activism, concerning water supply usage for the hectares of must-be-green-grass. And although this has always been promptly countered by many an articulate golf course owner by referring investigating reporters to a well or mini-reservoir built within the course for its own use, still the water table supply must be spread democratically, and so on and so forth, and that's not even mentioning yet---say the activists---the "organic" dye that goes into the already Strontium 80-laden grass that can't be meant for cows, with the elements in the mixture, too, going into the soil composition as well as the atmosphere, and so on and so forth, oh, I must stop.

     I must stop. I must stop, for I'd much rather have beef against the implication of land usage for golfing purposes per se. It is certainly an implication that completes itself vis a vis the contradictory policies of Philippine governance:

WE are a country rightly or wrongly running a land reform policy, for one, and a human settlements department in government, secondly, tasked to address the squatters and the migration-of-the-homeless problematique. And here we are, flaunting the idea that wide tracts of land, as long as their owners don't declare them as agricultural land, can either delay these properties' usefulness for some future industrial leasing, or otherwise use now for the golfing elite minority's pleasure under the guise of tourism or shoring up the real estate boom. Some will say that by this picture alone golf becomes a symbol of one side of a governance contradiction. For while land reform and the human settlement program are progressivist in intent, tourism and industrialization are a different set of priorities altogether. But I say, we must not stop there; we must move on, to conjecture upon the anatomy of that contradiction as a possible monster produce of sheer Hypocrisy.

     In the Marcos era, much government talk was disseminated against the presence of idle lands, a campaign of course which turned a blind eye to Marcos' fronts and Marcos' Kilusang Bagong Lipunan Party's members and their own teeming tracts of idle property. Hypocrisy in this country does not merely find symbolic amplification in sports, say, the golfing sport. No. For Hypocrisy is the sport.

     Farm estates in the United States are owned by private individuals or private companies instead of Hacienda Luisita-style "corporate" systems with former tenants for new incorporators, and maybe because hypocrisy is not a tradition in American agriculture. On the other hand, we've heard about the many problems posed against Philippine land reform, or Japanese land reform for that matter.

     For example, one claim has it that national agricultural objectives have not been achieved hand in hand with the Philippine land reform plan. The contending argument, on the other hand, goes that agricultural output was never the program's objective to begin with, the umbrella objective being political instead of economic. For surely, if the program is being moved by an economic thrust, then we'd have a problem with the alleged reality that many farmers are not necessarily guaranteed of a better life with land reform, which is a euphemistic way of expressing the dread of an opposite resultant. Unless perhaps the farmer converts his land to more profitable industrial leasing, in which case the land reform program qua agrarian reform would have to be deemed as having lost its purpose, success may yet prove to be elusive. Or would the program really lose its "redistributionary" objective this way? As long as one practices "charity" in his feudalistic heart, it shouldn't matter now what the recipient of one's goodness does with his new property.

     Others argue that land reform as a philosophical direction must be consistent and extend itself as a philosophy into factories and the services industry, for---after all---many families have had several of its generations serving under some same manufacturing dynasty, an ad agency's janitorial division for that matter under some same agency owner's family.

     Should the land reform philosophy extend stock options into this area of what could be a new labor-friendly national GDP?

BUT this is not a piece aiming to instigate a resurgence of debates on the land reform program and philosophy, lest I be mistaken for somebody sounding apologias for the landed. This is, rather (and I hope you'd believe me), a light examination of and/or rumination on the enveloping philosophy 1) of our republic itself and 2) around its regard for land ownership and that ownership's responsibilities, whether involving reformed land or not.

     An individual who owns a thousand hectares of farmland must subdivide it to tenants who have the option---helped by tax money---to buy the little pieces, so they can have their own little grape plantations. Well and good, at least for the utopia. But an individual who owns a thousand hectares of land not used for the production of pectin-rich vegetables can actually still exploit his area as he pleases before the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program catches up with him, and I am reminded of Lucio Tan's long-idle hectares in Quezon City beside homeless squatters.

     Agricultural farms up for land division/distribution. Golf courses. Agricultural production programs. Idle lands. Put two and two together and you have a picture of contradictions, perhaps deriving from a hypocritical lying elite culture, perhaps from a country's non-philosopher-kingship devoid of an integral wisdom that may serve as soul for the never-ending pornography of naked slogans. This non-philosophy has churned a religion of evasiveness, and its gods have been playing golf.

HOWEVER, I would like to say that perhaps the Filipino habit of throwing in the towel might someday swerve to more proactive attitudes of Davidian defiance, especially now that a purportedly social liberal government has been installed.

     Let me start with the "moderate" form of such a defiance. I could, for example, beyond wallowing in disgust, propose a sublimating potential for the golf sport in the tropical setting. I have in mind, for instance, a possible "progressivist" value for golf as a social item, one that will address instead of ignore its Philippine setting wherein a democracy is struggling to empower itself over a long-established plutocracy. I could start with the proposition, and perhaps a new millionaire can be created by my suggestion, that standards for golf course bunkers, roughs and other hazards can be upgraded to include forest trees, ponds containing edible fish, with the fairway areas occupying less acreage than the rocks and weeds, with even a fruit grove or corn area to be placed in, on, and around them. I'm talking about what modern parlance might dub as "extreme golf". Unacceptable, perhaps, to the traditionally conservative crowd that make up golf country club memberships, but then there are always industry companies like Virgin or Pixar or Apple willing to take up the slack of contentment and tried-and-tested business formulas. The new golf course of the future can now begin to look like this forest photo here.

     This new, one might say liberal or progressivist, type of golf might not mind venturing into earth-friendlier and necessarily people-friendlier redesigns of things we've come to accept, inclusive of pricing. Following the examples of Henry Sy, et al., and I don't mean their relationship-with-labor records, "extreme golf" investors can profit from membership volume instead of from a conservative neoliberal marketing of exclusivity. It's about time we cease to behave like fearful loyal subjects to a fearless royal class; let's liberate golf as though this were France in 1799!

     After all, the world has changed. And if we are to learn anything from this new phase---in the same manner that we've learned that centrist governments only tame, while fooling, a people, and that rightist governments that play conservative golf actually merely promote contesting communist and Muslim insurgencies---, it is that the latest world order demands a rehash of our concepts of a Promiseland, one less inspired by trickle-down economics perhaps, lest we wake up one day to find all our neighbors acting like terrorists with clubs, shouting defiance towards our golf clubs.

     But here's the disclaimer. Given our tame general populace's outlook which has long learned courage to fight only the little neighborly fights among themselves, the above grim down-with-Marie-Antoinette's-head picture is pretty unlikely. Golf courses will continue to blossom, agricultural tracts converted under our noses to industrial estates or resorts and subdivisions, and the hypocrisy will give way to a new comfortable utopia of Imeldific investing by the nouveau Imeldas. Fine utopia. Or should I say outbreak of rampant myopia?

     And the masses that will suffer will never know what hurt them, and they'll continue to murder themselves with petty bickerings, unable to protest against those beyond their education's comprehension. Even as many say we've always had a socialist tendency as a people, always expecting government to take care of us and blaming government for our ills, yet our magnificent elite shall continue, yet again, to flaunt a self-centeredness that recognizes the reality of the tamed "socialism" of our people that has been amply uneducated by our educational policies, unable therefore to find the art of war. But this is risky. How long will our children be safe from the surprises of sudden terrorist or criminal recruitment? Might we already have sown the seeds of such a subculture? Are we continuing to farm such a field of seeds? When wealthy Chinese-Filipinos and Spanish mestizos and new Malay-brown billionaires display their privileged delight in a golf course, dismissing Jun Lozada's example of repudiation, will a small-minded waiter who has had the all-too-common racist impression that Chinoys are an anti-labor Kuomintang lot, all millionaires myopic as East India Company, . . . will he plant the ire of a neo-Nazi in his spirit? Would his racism be checked by Chinoys' and mestizos' better presence in Rotary Club medical missions, say, for free breast cancer checkups on municipal grounds?

     Golf. It's going to be a game off limits to Filipinos. And by Filipinos I mean to include the homeless and the squatters and the communists. As well as the political opportunists/climbers. As well as the ordinary men and women of the village or town or city who drink the communal water, slosh in the global-rain puddles, try to understand the word "freedom" in an ever-decreasing ground space for their fenced-out habitation.

     Game off limits to Filipinos. That's what we're playing. And there are still 18 holes to play before trophy day, in case we reach it in this Philippine open.

SO, . . . yeah, well, one could say all the above simply amounts to inciting to rebellion instead of some simple semiotics and free political-cum-social-cum-cultural analysis, but I believe we all must address such issues as this regarding an exclusive sport one day, the same way we are addressing the exclusive private wangwang today, for it also somehow represents the latest glaring conflict of philosophies between today's two contending parties: the ruling Liberal with its supposed new Aquino social liberalism and the rest being one with their supposed conservatism or pseudo-liberalism or pseudo-progressivism. The new liberals' philosophy, it seems, is aimed at calling for a defeat of the things that sow the seeds of terrorism and rebellion and that plant such trees as Jose Maria Sison and Nur Misuari, and is aimed further at the thought that toppling rebellious trees is not enough (not enough, for given the rich soil for seeds, many similar trees will always be ready to replace toppled ones). Given our elite that has learned---from the time of our Spaniard conquerors on to the time of our turn-of-the-century American invaders, our Tojo masters, as well as the eras of the Aguinaldo and Marcos and Erap and Gloria movements---to test the limits of the average Filipino's patience, the new liberalism's order would be easier said than done in our "local geopolitical" reality.

     It behooves us, then, to play on with this game of g-o-l-f, which will eventually gloriously bring us to wherever it will when it does. Gloriously, I say, because it would be beyond the lip service of doomsayers like me.

     So, okay, then. Let's go back to business. What's your handicap? ♦

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Author's note: This essay is adapted from a 2004 column I wrote for the now-defunct provincial e-zine Bananacue Republic.

Readings related to golf and the Philippines I'd recommend:

• "He used golf to carry messages undermining the Marcos regime"
• "The Golf War: A Story of Land, Golf and Revolution in the Philippines"

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Photos borrowed from:

• http://www.thefilipino.com/golfcoursesinthephilippines/ - Hacienda Luisita Golf and Country Club
• http://coconuter.blogspot.com/2008/02/scandal-tainted-nbnzte-deal.html - Jun Lozada
• http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/current/ug/modules/marx.html - Karl Marx
• http://www.hootiegolf.com/news.asp - Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish playing golf
• http://blogs.knoxnews.com/pineda/2009/09/living-under-martial-law-part.html - Ferdinand Marcos
• http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=733434&page=20 - Lucio Tan
• http://thenextreporter.com/jg/philippine-election-2010-results-benigno-noynoy-aquino-iii-leads-presidential-race-wide-margin/086496/ - Noynoy Aquino
• http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/OpenSpaces/Pages/ForestPreservation.aspx - forest
• http://timeslikethis-wrigley.blogspot.com/2009/06/squatters-in-philippines.html - squatters in the Philippines

The Usual or New?

Here come the fiery tests. Noynoy Aquino’s government is being tested, nay, now under its own supporters’ microscope. Among social liberals and progressivists in his camp, the question now on the table as the issues of the year accrue is this: how “liberal” is Aquino’s “liberal” government?

     The young Aquino administration has demonstrated its clearly social-liberal resolve to make the laws on the road and in the taxation front equally applied to everyone, at least as far as the media could judge, and this was applauded with aplomb by a refreshed public almost with the same popular enthusiasm the new elite of France hurrah’d and hooray’d toward Napoleon I’s arrival on the scene to battle it out with the rule of the then-increasingly unpopular French Directory. Aquino’s social liberals are well on their way, too, we believe, to making heads roll over certain missing funds, certain overspent funds, and “funds funneled to feed” (FFF, one might acro-name it) the greed of GOCC (government-owned or -controlled corporations) executives.

So, how liberal indeed is the liberal government of Noynoy Aquino toward the new issues of the month?

     Beyond the technicalities within legalese, the pilots’ and the looming flight-attendants’ strikes at Philippine Airlines exhumed old questions concerning Lucio Tan. Facebook discussions on this extended to similar issues concerning Henry Sy and the typecast on the entire cast of wealthy Chinese-Filipinos and their alleged collective attitude towards labor, the manipulability of the Labor Code and its loopholes, and the manipulability of the enforcers of this code. So, the question is, how will Aquino’s liberalism try to make its reformist mark on the labor codex of this country, and/or on the strict enforcement of this code? Will it even try? If it doesn’t, will the liberals stamp Xs in boxes printed on their list of characteristic liberal approaches, signifying the approaches Aquino has ignored, with this checklist functioning as the party’s red book idealism checklist for/on him?
     Comes now, too, the Hacienda Luisita issue on a redux. We’ve heard the explanations before, about how the land’s debts can’t be transferred to its farmers before they’re paid, for otherwise the farmer will have to pay those debts (the argument further goes that it’s the banks who won’t allow such transfers until the debts are paid, the trust having been with the original debtor and not with any debtor-to-be to whom the trust might be transferred). The claim goes that this problematic spurred the stock-distribution scheme. But, again, beyond the technicalities that legalese can muster, and beyond a Supreme Court decision on the stock distribution’s legality, how the liberal Aquino government will define its liberalism upon this issue is quite interesting, especially on allegations concerning the conditions around the property’s purchase in the 1950s. Where will this liberalism rise to the occasion? Where will it choose to close its eyes and emulate a neoliberal or Filipino sort of neoconservative stance?
     And what about the media’s seemingly-progressivist stance: how does that play into Aquino’s administration of this problem? Or, have the media really been behaving like progressivists in their coverage foci and their questions? First of all, what’s the difference between a 20th-century social liberal (whose tenets are to a large degree progressivist) and a progressivist (whose tenets are essentially social liberal)? Is it true that whereas the liberal (which really means the 20th-century moderate social liberal) would root for people empowerment without dismantling the capitalist, or even feudal, framework of industries (including agricultural industries), the progressivist social liberal’s position meanwhile is for total liberation? With the latter, then, is it for total, unquestioned land distribution—CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) fund availability notwithstanding—in and away from the feudal sphere, and—by extension—total worker empowerment in the manufacturing and services sphere? Assuming that these are wrong assumptions about the present dynamics of the moderate liberal view versus the progressivist liberal view, still the question remains: how will Noynoy Aquino’s liberalism define itself in its Wikipedia page as consisting of and consisting not of? These are the suspenseful questions on the table.

     On which issues/questions is Noynoy Aquino a liberal, on which a conservative (or conservative liberal or neoliberal or, by author James Weinstein, a “corporate liberal”)? On which issues/questions is he more than a mere liberal, thus a progressivist? Liberal Party stalwarts, insiders, wannabes, pretenders, and volunteers, ready your paper with the boxes. This is one for your Red Book.

These are not just questions for the mere labeling of factions within an organization’s dynamics that one can use for any future realignment or reorganization—as it’s done in professional basketball for the allocation of free-agency uniforms and colors within a season—, for these questions are seriously ideological. To demonstrate their seriousness, let’s examine the ideologies.
     It may be assumed, rightly or wrongly, that a liberal—in contrast to a progressivist—would regard the land reform policy itself as wrong. American farmers who may happen to be liberals (e.g. Jimmy Carter) own hundreds of acres of land for their corn or wheat or barley or cotton or cattle; could this be why American agriculture is relatively healthy compared to the agriculture industry of nations heavy on the issue of land reform? What has Japan’s “emancipation of farming land” done to Japan’s rice industry, in turn to its parliament eternally threatened by the votes and support of the rice-farming lobby? Will we become a nation feasting on ramen made from imported flour instead of rice porridge when land reform is finally perfectly enabled? Will most of those emancipated land end up as backyard gardens for subdivision homes? Will our economy suffer the same destiny Zimbabwe reached after its own hopeful land reform? These are questions a social liberal may share in bannering in the company of agricultural conservatives. Land reform may not exactly be the panacea for national wealth that many hope it will be—they might proudly shout—, but merely perhaps a momentary distributive cop-out for the temporary satisfaction of land-reform ideals. For even the Keynesian economist might ask, “will land reform bring the national economy more harm than good?” Here, the social-liberal economist would share the conservative point of view that taking care of the big industries is necessary for taking care of the national wealth that, in turn, will trickle down—by its large effects and contributions to the GDP—to taking care of the little people.
     But, in contrast, it certainly wouldn’t mean that the progressivist point of view as regards land reform is merely emotional, would it? E.g. hovering around such rationales as “a right to dignity,” etc., that most in economic science may view as more sentimental (or emotional) than rational. For progressivism has always been of the view that national wealth is not as important as the well-being of individuals, for in the well-being of individuals lie national strength. (In supposedly ultra-radical progressivism, called communism, the individual farmer’s well-being is often questioned by democratic governments, because, although communist farmers are loaned tracts of land to till, their harvests do not entirely belong to them but mostly paid to the state.) Progressivists, in putting a premium on the extension of property rights to the smallest individual instead of to corporations, would essentially have no qualms proposing the ideal of a nation of sari-sari stores over a nation run by malls and mall-based grocery stores. A nation of small-scale industries and little farms does not exactly give you a worse economic standing in the world than a nation run by big business, they’d say, if we can only refocus our economic science on a holistic plane (one that might take into account diverse factors including the environment) instead of on the usual GDP-reliant simplistic macroeconomic angle. That progressivist proposal may be workable—with adaptations and emendations, so to avoid Mao Zeddong’s micro-economic faults as he tried to veer away from Deng Xiaoping’s macro-economic globalization revolution for the sake of securing the communist ideal.
     (Here, the conservative-cum-neoliberal will butt in, to say that a nation run by progressivists will only provide our country a weak military because of a consequent weak center, as if the tax-evading big business sector in our country has churned out a sophisticated military for our country as had been allowed by their conservative patrons.)
     But assuming that Aquino’s liberalism has that above question on land reform under serious consideration; still, it certainly cannot afford to repeal—even gradually—land reform laws, or even discourage the current national belief about land reform. Knowing that, how will it go around the issue, then? Will it dance the same dance the past conservative-cum-royalist governments of Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada, Ramos and Marcos (and the past coalition government of Corazon Aquino) danced to keep the small farmer from getting his tract of land for free or quasi-free? Will there be more rally dispersals? And will Manny Villar’s Nacionalistas ride on this weakness to push the propaganda portraying their party to be the real champions of progressivist ideals, never mind that their billionaire leader has hardly displayed any progressivist direction in either his role as a legislator or as a land acquirer/investor?
     But this is not a blog of interrogatives about other people and their quirky alliances and flip-flopping vague ideologies. This is mainly a question-blog about Noynoy Aquino’s liberalism and how far it will go in supposedly advocating the social liberal tenets that have so far distinguished him, in the present media at least, from the conservatives we’ve been so used to and have gotten tired of.

Photos borrowed from:

• http://www.philippineselections.com/election-pool/will-you-vote-for-noynoy-aquino-for-president.php/comment-page-5 -- Noynoy Aquino
• http://dateline.ph/?p=5108 -- PAL strike
• http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100810-285874/Bishop-slams-land-deal -- Bishop Pabillo