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KONTRA-KUNDIMAN --3 TULA NI E. SAN JUAN, Jr.
KONTRA-KUNDIMAN # 1
ni E. San Juan. Jr.
“Kailangang managinip!” --V. I. Lenin
Sa gitna ng paglalakbay, sandaling bumaling at naitanong:
Isang matagal na sakit ba ang buhay, walang lunas at lubay?
Bakit hahakbang upang mabulabog ang alikabok sa lansangan?
Tumindig sa harap ng pader, suriin ang bituka ng hayup.
Kakalawangin lamang ang puso mo sa agos ng luha’t pawis.
Nanuot sa buto ang hinala, tumagos sa laman ang hinagap—
Nagluksang langit ang gabay bagamat may bituing kumikislap.
Paano pupuslit kung nakatanikala sa rehas ng iyong dibdib?
Hindi mawatas kung saan lulubog-lulutang ang panaginip.
Kakalawangin lang ng ambon ang naglalamay na ulirat.
Oo, hindi mahulaan kung saan lalapag ang bagwis ng pangarap.
Bakas ng lumbay sa iyong mukha’y pasa rin ng diwa.
Di humupa ang pangamba hanggang di dumating ang alitaptap….
Sa buong magdamag mailap ang kasukdulan.
Kakalawangin lamang ng hamog ang budhing nanunubok.
Balisa’t gipit sa masalimuot na suliranin ng tadhana
Nais mong himaymayin ang balighong hiwaga ng damdamin,
Ngunit ito’y kabaliwan, sumayod sa guniguning lumagpak.
Dadapo pa kaya sa pisngi ang bulong ng iyong halik?
Kinakalawang na ng ulan ang utak ng kamalayang suwail.
Ako ba’y nagayumang dalubhasa sa agham ng pagibig?
Naghihingalo, nakabayubay sa bahag-hari ng iyong pasiya….
Pagtawid ng ilog, payo mo: sa pagbibigay ikaw ay pagbibigyan…
Sa siwang ng piitan sumisilip ang silahis ng iyong ngiti.
Kinalawang na ng laway at hininga ang katawang hinubaran.
KONTRA-KUNDIMAN #2![]( "earthwindfw")
--E. San Juan, Jr.
Sapantahang may katuturan ang maikling panahon ng ating pagtatalik,
Barbara—
Subalit kung matuklasan mong nagbalatkayo ang anghel mong bugaw?
Kung panaginip lamang na walang saysay ang himalang kariktan?
Paghupa ng baha, sinilo ka sa ilalim ng tulay hinabi ng libog at lagim,
Barbara—
Sumisid sa burak ng salagimsim, sinimsim ang katas ng pagkukunwari….
Nahulog sa lagusan, hinugot, ngunit anong kahulugan ng basbas sa pigi?
Sa kubling panig ng bulwagan, nasumpungan ang napigtal na kilay,
Barbara—
Ningas-kugon ang hibo ng pagnanais, sandaling sumiklab, titis na nauupos
Bakit pumaimbulog kung usok lamang na walang darang?
Gayuma ng iyong katawan, patawarin ang hilot-himas ng malagkit na titig,
Barbara—
Sa gutom at uhaw, natarok mo ba ang kabuluhan ng pakikipagsapalaran?
Hawiin ang birang at dumilat, itakwil ang sariling mandaraya’t taksil
Anong mapurol na subyang ang humiwa sa dila ko’t gumurlis sa noo?
Barbara—
Bumuka, tumining at sumidhi ang ganda nang hita’y kusang mag-arko
Kaluluwa mo’y naglatang sa panimdim sumasagitsit
Saang planeta bumuhos ang iyong hininga’t bumuhol sa buhawi?
Barbara—
Saliksikin ang balintataw na sinukat ng aking anino—
Magkasiping pa rin kahit gumulong ang bungo sa banging nagluwal
Bago itikom ang daliri sa pisnging malamig, kalamayin ang loob,
Barbara—
Sunggaban ang talinghaga at suriin ang lumagpak na buntot ng guniguni
Sa guwang ng utak—ikulong, utasin sa lagablab ng halik at yapos.
KONTRA-KUNDIMAN #3
--E. San Juan, Jr.
Sandali lamang
Namanhid sa lambing at lamyos ng lisyang kudyapi
Samantalang laganap ang kabuktutan
Kagat-labi ang saksi
Walang dumidilang sumbat walang singhap na pumupukaw
Ngunit nagsisikip ang dibdib sa ulilang kural
Umaaligid ang magkatuwang na limbas sa puyo ng ulap
Tinugis ang bagting ng dagitab na namilaylay
Sa gilid ng banging nagluwal sa batis
Bagamat matagal nang tumalon ang palaka sa lawang malumot
May alingawngaw pa rin ang ambil ng kabalintunaan
Sa lalamunan ng kasiping may aninong naglagalag
Umungol sa utak ang tagulaylay habang tumutulo ang buhangin
Gumitaw ang asidong alimuom sa bituka ng lupa
Uling karbong bubog sa budhi
Ibinunyag ba ng saksi ang natagpuan sa sulok ng gubat?
Bahagyang humadlang sa amihan ang tabing sa bintana
Tumingkad sa dilim ang katutubong ningas
Hayaang pumayagpag ang pulang kurtina sa magdamag--
Tuksong tumikhim, humaginit, hanggang bumungad
Kuko ng kaluluwang humihimas sa kawalan
Sandali lamang
Pumutok na ang uhay sa dulo ng duguang tangkay--
Walang tutubos sa nalugmok na saksi.
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HONORING JOSE RIZAL, NATIONAL HERO OF THE PHILIPPINES
FOR JOSE RIZAL, FILIPINO ANTI-IMPERIALIST REVOLUTIONARY: On his 59th birth anniversary
by E. SAN JUAN, Jr.
Philippines S tudies C enter, Washington DC
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On the occasion of Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary in 2011, the Paciano Rizal Family Heritage released for sale replicas of an exquisitely handcrafted book devised by Rizal when he was in exile in Dapitan (1892-96). The improvised fortune-telling kit bears the title, “Haec est Sibylla Cumana”/ “This is the Sibyl of Cumae,” a book of oracles (Yuchengo 2015). The figure referred to is the priestess/prophetess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony near Naples, in ancient times. She played a pivotal role in Virgil’s Aeneid,helping guide Aeneas in his journey to the underworld to visit his dead father Anchises. Bridging the realms of the living and the dead, the old and the new, she reminds us of her sisters (the most famous being the Sibyl of Delphi) who also offered to help smooth the passage of the traveller from regions of the past to the present and future (on six other sibyls, see Benjamin 2015, 303-08).
Ancient oracles served to appease the gods, revealing what secret messages are hidden behind visible occurrences and natural phenomena. During the medieval age, the Sibylline books (like Virgil’s Eclogues) were thought to prophesy the birth of Christ and the ultimate salvation of humankind. Thus, worldly time acquired import and a direction, everyday life found a specific gravity in the chartered chronicle. So would the time Rizal spent in exile—a dragging duration which he filled with socially rewarding accomplishments—bear significance, charged with still unravelled purport and portentous meanings.
Divining Incommensurables
What motivated the deported filibustero to spend his time and energy in inventing this game? Was it simply to while away the boredom of exile? Or does it suggest the artist’s preoccupation with fate, temporality, the hazardous passage from past to future? Rizal did not foresee his forced removal to Dapitan when he left his mother and relatives in Hong Kong in 1892. He formed the Liga Filipina on July 3. On July 6, he was arrested for allegedly transporting subversive material in his sister’s luggage, and summarily deported. During those years of exile, he appealed several times for a change in his situation, but to no avail. Chance, luck, happenstance, accident—was he the plaything of unknown mischievous forces?
by E. SAN JUAN, Jr.
Philippines S tudies C enter, Washington DC
On the occasion of Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary in 2011, the Paciano Rizal Family Heritage released for sale replicas of an exquisitely handcrafted book devised by Rizal when he was in exile in Dapitan (1892-96). The improvised fortune-telling kit bears the title, “Haec est Sibylla Cumana”/ “This is the Sibyl of Cumae,” a book of oracles (Yuchengo 2015). The figure referred to is the priestess/prophetess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony near Naples, in ancient times. She played a pivotal role in Virgil’s Aeneid,helping guide Aeneas in his journey to the underworld to visit his dead father Anchises. Bridging the realms of the living and the dead, the old and the new, she reminds us of her sisters (the most famous being the Sibyl of Delphi) who also offered to help smooth the passage of the traveller from regions of the past to the present and future (on six other sibyls, see Benjamin 2015, 303-08).
Ancient oracles served to appease the gods, revealing what secret messages are hidden behind visible occurrences and natural phenomena. During the medieval age, the Sibylline books (like Virgil’s Eclogues) were thought to prophesy the birth of Christ and the ultimate salvation of humankind. Thus, worldly time acquired import and a direction, everyday life found a specific gravity in the chartered chronicle. So would the time Rizal spent in exile—a dragging duration which he filled with socially rewarding accomplishments—bear significance, charged with still unravelled purport and portentous meanings.
Divining Incommensurables
What motivated the deported filibustero to spend his time and energy in inventing this game? Was it simply to while away the boredom of exile? Or does it suggest the artist’s preoccupation with fate, temporality, the hazardous passage from past to future? Rizal did not foresee his forced removal to Dapitan when he left his mother and relatives in Hong Kong in 1892. He formed the Liga Filipina on July 3. On July 6, he was arrested for allegedly transporting subversive material in his sister’s luggage, and summarily deported. During those years of exile, he appealed several times for a change in his situation, but to no avail. Chance, luck, happenstance, accident—was he the plaything of unknown mischievous forces?
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Fortune-telling was no stranger to Rizal. In the festivities described in Chapter 24 of Noli Me Tangere, men played cards and chess while the women “curious about knowing the future, preferred to ask questions of the wheel of fortune” (2006, 202). Denouncing their games as if they induced fornication, Padre Salvi wrenched their sinful book and tore it to shreds. As for the matter of chance, Elias may be allowed to speak for the free-thinking spirit when he replied to Ibarra’s query whether he believed in chance—an apt response also to skeptics of the Sibylla Cumana game: “To believe in chance is tantamount to believing in miracles; both beliefs assume that God does not know the future. What is chance or contingency? An event that absolutely no one has foreseen. What is miracle? A contradiction, an upsetting of natural laws. Contradiction and lack of foresight in the Intelligence which controls the world’s machinery signifies two great imperfections” (2006, 300). The Deist Cartesian persona of Rizal is surely ventriloquizing here to dodge censorship.
Whatever the wager of this ludic exercise, Rizal’s parlor-game is delightfully provocative. It offers the player 52 questions and 416 answers (each question has 8 possible answers) all cryptic, ambiguous, vague enough to trigger wild speculation. You roll a wooden top with 8 sides in order to pick your answer from an elaborate table; chance decides which answer you will receive. One answer may be gambled here: “A mother-in- law is not just a mother-in-law; she is also a mother—and you are an enemy of mothers?” A symptomatic query. Overall, the game is user- friendly, advising us not to be afraid of the future. But whether we like it or not, we are thrown into our common lot, guessing, suspicious, left in the lurch.
According to the Rizal clan, this precious heirloom was preserved by generations of safekeepers and descendants, foremost among them Narcisa Rizal Lopez. It survived the disasters of the 1896 revolution, the Filipino-American War, the Japanese occupation, and MacArthur’s horrific “liberation” of Intramuros where millions of Filipinos perished (Yuchengco 2015). Its survival presages the hero’s fortuitous intervention into our humdrum shopping/consuming affairs in this new millennium.
Deciphering Origins in Oak Leaves
Three years before his Dapitan sojourn, Rizal was engaged in some kind of reasoned guessing, specifically in conjuring the future of the islands from the vantage-point of the Madrid-based La Solidaridad. This time it’s not divination via a wooden top or roulette-wheel. Using hi knowledge of the past and intuition of the character of nations, Rizal tried to predict the vicissitudes of the islands in the judicious calculations of “The Philippines A Century Hence.” It would be a search for what’s genuinely autochtonous, motivated by the historian’s quest “to make
Whatever the wager of this ludic exercise, Rizal’s parlor-game is delightfully provocative. It offers the player 52 questions and 416 answers (each question has 8 possible answers) all cryptic, ambiguous, vague enough to trigger wild speculation. You roll a wooden top with 8 sides in order to pick your answer from an elaborate table; chance decides which answer you will receive. One answer may be gambled here: “A mother-in- law is not just a mother-in-law; she is also a mother—and you are an enemy of mothers?” A symptomatic query. Overall, the game is user- friendly, advising us not to be afraid of the future. But whether we like it or not, we are thrown into our common lot, guessing, suspicious, left in the lurch.
According to the Rizal clan, this precious heirloom was preserved by generations of safekeepers and descendants, foremost among them Narcisa Rizal Lopez. It survived the disasters of the 1896 revolution, the Filipino-American War, the Japanese occupation, and MacArthur’s horrific “liberation” of Intramuros where millions of Filipinos perished (Yuchengco 2015). Its survival presages the hero’s fortuitous intervention into our humdrum shopping/consuming affairs in this new millennium.
Deciphering Origins in Oak Leaves
Three years before his Dapitan sojourn, Rizal was engaged in some kind of reasoned guessing, specifically in conjuring the future of the islands from the vantage-point of the Madrid-based La Solidaridad. This time it’s not divination via a wooden top or roulette-wheel. Using hi knowledge of the past and intuition of the character of nations, Rizal tried to predict the vicissitudes of the islands in the judicious calculations of “The Philippines A Century Hence.” It would be a search for what’s genuinely autochtonous, motivated by the historian’s quest “to make
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known the past so that it may be possible to judge better the present and measure the path which has been traversed during three centuries” (cited in Cushner 1971, 224)..
Noli Me Tangere demonstrated the protagonist’s chief malady, Ibarra’s temporary loss of roots after seven years abroad. His family’s victims would reanimate his atrophied memory. To proceed in his journey of rediscovering his homeland, Rizal had to retrace its original condition. On his return to Europe, in 1888-89, he rescued Antonio de Morga’s 1609 chronicle, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, from the London Museum and had it published in Paris with his annotations.
Armed with testimonies of a flourishing pre-conquest civilization, Rizal dares to foretell the fate of his country a hundred years from the close of the 19th-century. Note that the extrapolation is based on a continuing dialectical movement in which potent unused qualities persist, transmuted but preserved by the forces that seek to destroy them: “Religious shows, rites that caught the eye, songs, lights, images arrayed with gold, worship in a strange language, legends, miracles and sermons, hypnotized the already naturally superstitious spirits of the country but did not succeed in destroying it altogether, in spite of this the whole system afterwards developed and operated with unyielding tenacity” (1984, 366). Given elements of the pristine past transmigrating to the fallen present, Rizal hypothesizes what may occur:
...Will the Philippine Islands be separated from the mother country to live independently, to fall into the hands of other nations, or to ally themselves with neighboring powers?
It is impossible to reply to these questions, for to all of them both yes and no may be answered, according to the time desired to be covered. When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less must there be in the life of a people. being endowed with mobility and movement! So, it is that in order to deal with those questions, it is necessary to presume an unlimited period of time, and in accordance therewith try to forecast the future (1984, 367).
Geopolitics of Circumvention
Notice Rizal’s accentuation of “mobility and movement,” a sign of global modernity foregrounded in his 1889 article, “On Travel” (1962, 22-28). Other signs highlighted what’s relative, arbitrary, and undecideable where circumstances prevailed over all. In his essays, Rizal historicizes geography, connecting Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations with newly opened China and India via commerce and migration. He attributes all the advances in modern societies to the movement of bodies, ideas,
Noli Me Tangere demonstrated the protagonist’s chief malady, Ibarra’s temporary loss of roots after seven years abroad. His family’s victims would reanimate his atrophied memory. To proceed in his journey of rediscovering his homeland, Rizal had to retrace its original condition. On his return to Europe, in 1888-89, he rescued Antonio de Morga’s 1609 chronicle, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, from the London Museum and had it published in Paris with his annotations.
Armed with testimonies of a flourishing pre-conquest civilization, Rizal dares to foretell the fate of his country a hundred years from the close of the 19th-century. Note that the extrapolation is based on a continuing dialectical movement in which potent unused qualities persist, transmuted but preserved by the forces that seek to destroy them: “Religious shows, rites that caught the eye, songs, lights, images arrayed with gold, worship in a strange language, legends, miracles and sermons, hypnotized the already naturally superstitious spirits of the country but did not succeed in destroying it altogether, in spite of this the whole system afterwards developed and operated with unyielding tenacity” (1984, 366). Given elements of the pristine past transmigrating to the fallen present, Rizal hypothesizes what may occur:
...Will the Philippine Islands be separated from the mother country to live independently, to fall into the hands of other nations, or to ally themselves with neighboring powers?
It is impossible to reply to these questions, for to all of them both yes and no may be answered, according to the time desired to be covered. When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less must there be in the life of a people. being endowed with mobility and movement! So, it is that in order to deal with those questions, it is necessary to presume an unlimited period of time, and in accordance therewith try to forecast the future (1984, 367).
Geopolitics of Circumvention
Notice Rizal’s accentuation of “mobility and movement,” a sign of global modernity foregrounded in his 1889 article, “On Travel” (1962, 22-28). Other signs highlighted what’s relative, arbitrary, and undecideable where circumstances prevailed over all. In his essays, Rizal historicizes geography, connecting Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations with newly opened China and India via commerce and migration. He attributes all the advances in modern societies to the movement of bodies, ideas,
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perceptions and impressions. This compression of time-space is hinted by his pen-name, “Laong Laan,” “ever ready,” prepared for any comeuppance, as he confessed to his associate Marcelo del Pilar after dreaming of dead relatives and friends: “Although my body is very strong and I have no illness and no fear, I am preparing myself for death and for any eventuality. ‘Laong Laan’ is my true name” (quoted in Zaide 1984, 172).
Whatever the epochal contingencies involved, Rizal anchors his prediction on a constant factor: the Malayan “delicacy of sentiment,” sensitive “self-love,” readiness to sacrifice everything “for an aspiration or a conceit.” He has “all the meekness and all the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao.” Moreover, “brutalization of the Malayan Filipinos has been demonstrated to be impossible,” nor can they be totally exterminated. He concludes that “the Islands cannot remain in the condition they are without requiring from the sovereign country more liberty. Mutatis mutandis. For new men, a new social order.” Self-determination of Indios looming in the horizon cannot be ignored, given the emergence of novel productive forces bursting the integument of the repressive, decadent social order.
It is only a matter of time. Sooner or later, Rizal asserts, a natural law dictates that the colonies will declare themselves independent. When the country secures its independence “after heroic and stubborn conflicts,” no other power will dare to take up what Spain has been unable to hold, not even the United States whose traditions will not allow it—a seriously misleading oversight. Rizal closes with an eloquent hymn to a vision of a bountiful, free, convivial homeland reminiscent of the naturalizing invocation of the 1882 essay, “Amor Patrio” / “Love of Country” (1962, 15-21).
Very likely the Philippines will defend with inexpressible valor the liberty secured at the price of so much blood and sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from their soil and with the recollection of their past, they will perhaps strive to enter freely upon the wide road of progress, and all will labor together to strengthen their fatherland, both internally and externally, with the same enthusiasm, with which a youth falls again to tilling the land of his ancestors so long wasted and abandoned through the neglect of those who have withheld it from him (194, 391).
A mood of exultant self-confidence pervades the landscape of blood-soaked, scorched fields where zealous tillers appear, poised to strike with plow and harrow. To be sure, Rizal cannot indulge in probabilities. He ventures to chart a destiny vulnerable to random, haphazard incidents. But immediately he assures us, with nonchalance, “It is not well to trust to accident, for there is sometimes an imperceptible and incomprehensbie logic in the workings of history. Fortunately, peoples as
Whatever the epochal contingencies involved, Rizal anchors his prediction on a constant factor: the Malayan “delicacy of sentiment,” sensitive “self-love,” readiness to sacrifice everything “for an aspiration or a conceit.” He has “all the meekness and all the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao.” Moreover, “brutalization of the Malayan Filipinos has been demonstrated to be impossible,” nor can they be totally exterminated. He concludes that “the Islands cannot remain in the condition they are without requiring from the sovereign country more liberty. Mutatis mutandis. For new men, a new social order.” Self-determination of Indios looming in the horizon cannot be ignored, given the emergence of novel productive forces bursting the integument of the repressive, decadent social order.
It is only a matter of time. Sooner or later, Rizal asserts, a natural law dictates that the colonies will declare themselves independent. When the country secures its independence “after heroic and stubborn conflicts,” no other power will dare to take up what Spain has been unable to hold, not even the United States whose traditions will not allow it—a seriously misleading oversight. Rizal closes with an eloquent hymn to a vision of a bountiful, free, convivial homeland reminiscent of the naturalizing invocation of the 1882 essay, “Amor Patrio” / “Love of Country” (1962, 15-21).
Very likely the Philippines will defend with inexpressible valor the liberty secured at the price of so much blood and sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from their soil and with the recollection of their past, they will perhaps strive to enter freely upon the wide road of progress, and all will labor together to strengthen their fatherland, both internally and externally, with the same enthusiasm, with which a youth falls again to tilling the land of his ancestors so long wasted and abandoned through the neglect of those who have withheld it from him (194, 391).
A mood of exultant self-confidence pervades the landscape of blood-soaked, scorched fields where zealous tillers appear, poised to strike with plow and harrow. To be sure, Rizal cannot indulge in probabilities. He ventures to chart a destiny vulnerable to random, haphazard incidents. But immediately he assures us, with nonchalance, “It is not well to trust to accident, for there is sometimes an imperceptible and incomprehensbie logic in the workings of history. Fortunately, peoples as
4
well as governments are subject to it.” Soon Rizal will render transparent this dystopic conspiracy of history.
Indeed, Rizal cannot allow the gratuitous and the aleatory from taking over, for he discerns a hidden pattern under surface contingencies. There’s more hidden behind appearances. He interpreted his dreams as enigmatic forecasts of the future. Does this mixture of law and luck, decorum and delirium, capture Rizal’s own strategy in confronting his relations with women, not just with his mother and sisters, whose feelings and sensibility somehow gravitated to his orbit?
Scandalous Missing Object
We may now segue, with “fear and trembling,” into the perilous domain of sexual politics. Benedict Anderson’s meticulous catalogue of European influences on Rizal’s thought in his book Under Three Flags analyzed Rizal’s susceptiblities. Rizal absorbed omnivorously the heterogenous colors, valence and savors of European culture. But was he gay? Or was he secretly an anarchist, a closet nihilist? Anderson sought to anatomize Rizal’s psyche and its bizarre libidinal permutations. It’s an intriguing detective itinerary that unfortunately succumbs to smug Eurocentric vainglory.
However, we need to focus our discourse on “the woman question.” Since our task here is limited to investigating the situation of Sisa as a metaphor for the problem of gender inequality, the fraught issue of Rizal’s sexual identity is entangled with the position of the Others—the outcasts, lunatics, profane flunkeys, perverse guardians of “the sacred,” etc. In this context, it might be profitable to survey the aleatory as well as reiterative performance of his erotic disposition and disclaimers. His go-ahead signal for this inquiry was sounded at the end of his prognostication: “The masks have fallen...” We no longer see through the glass, darkly.
Earlier, in his 1884 speech praising the painters Juna Luna and Felix Hidalgo, Rizal announced: “The patriarchal era in the Philippines is waning...The furrow is ready and the ground is not sterile” (2011, 18-22). Nature has been historicized; the androcentric cosmos needs to yield to the nurturant, generative principle of the cultivators, fisher-folk, artisans, women, indigenes or ethnic minorities—the exploited Indio workers seeds of tomorrow in cities and countryside.
Biographers have eagerly inventoried the fabled targets of Rizal’s affections, with their varying if incalculable pressure on his political and ethical pursuits. Ultimately, the aesthetic/hedonistic level of engagement would be surpassed, shifting the burden of responsibility to the ethical and eventually political field of symbolic violence. We owe this angle of
Indeed, Rizal cannot allow the gratuitous and the aleatory from taking over, for he discerns a hidden pattern under surface contingencies. There’s more hidden behind appearances. He interpreted his dreams as enigmatic forecasts of the future. Does this mixture of law and luck, decorum and delirium, capture Rizal’s own strategy in confronting his relations with women, not just with his mother and sisters, whose feelings and sensibility somehow gravitated to his orbit?
Scandalous Missing Object
We may now segue, with “fear and trembling,” into the perilous domain of sexual politics. Benedict Anderson’s meticulous catalogue of European influences on Rizal’s thought in his book Under Three Flags analyzed Rizal’s susceptiblities. Rizal absorbed omnivorously the heterogenous colors, valence and savors of European culture. But was he gay? Or was he secretly an anarchist, a closet nihilist? Anderson sought to anatomize Rizal’s psyche and its bizarre libidinal permutations. It’s an intriguing detective itinerary that unfortunately succumbs to smug Eurocentric vainglory.
However, we need to focus our discourse on “the woman question.” Since our task here is limited to investigating the situation of Sisa as a metaphor for the problem of gender inequality, the fraught issue of Rizal’s sexual identity is entangled with the position of the Others—the outcasts, lunatics, profane flunkeys, perverse guardians of “the sacred,” etc. In this context, it might be profitable to survey the aleatory as well as reiterative performance of his erotic disposition and disclaimers. His go-ahead signal for this inquiry was sounded at the end of his prognostication: “The masks have fallen...” We no longer see through the glass, darkly.
Earlier, in his 1884 speech praising the painters Juna Luna and Felix Hidalgo, Rizal announced: “The patriarchal era in the Philippines is waning...The furrow is ready and the ground is not sterile” (2011, 18-22). Nature has been historicized; the androcentric cosmos needs to yield to the nurturant, generative principle of the cultivators, fisher-folk, artisans, women, indigenes or ethnic minorities—the exploited Indio workers seeds of tomorrow in cities and countryside.
Biographers have eagerly inventoried the fabled targets of Rizal’s affections, with their varying if incalculable pressure on his political and ethical pursuits. Ultimately, the aesthetic/hedonistic level of engagement would be surpassed, shifting the burden of responsibility to the ethical and eventually political field of symbolic violence. We owe this angle of
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interpretation to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) who lived before Rizal was born, his writings unknown to the Filipino exiles in Madrid and Paris. So far we can trace the critical moments of evasion in all encounters with the desired subject/object of cathexis and its fetishistic resonance, including the two eccentric cases: the Japanese companion and the Irish paramour.
Trauma of Counter-Identity
In Either/Or and other texts, Kierkegaard defined the alternative modalities of living with Others endowed with the power of recognition or refusal. They are inscribed in the tortuous passage from the aesthetic to the ethical and then to the religious domains characterized by “the baptism of the will” (1946, 107-08; 129-30). For Rizal, however, the leap into faith is circumvented by his rationalist disposition acquired during his European schooling. Aside from frailocracy’s stranglehold, the path of orthodox piety is blocked by the commitment to the mother/nation, a universal category, in which immanent martyrdom aborts mystifying transcendence. The ideal of honor, self-esteem (pundonor or amor propio), grounded in his appreciation of native practices, also thwarts subservience to dogmatic absolutism. The Kierkegaardian concept of repetition, the recollection of past experiences superimposed on a future trajectory of conduct, has distinguished Rizal’s handling of his affairs with women. Nostalgic retrospection marks all his letters from Europe, syncopated with dreams of retrieving the years of childhood innocence and customary family/clan solidarity.
But Rizal was not a naive idealist habitually looking backwards. He was always forward-looking, given to utopian speculations (for his Dapitan experiments, see Craig 1913; Zaide 1984; for the Borneo scheme, see Rizal 2011, 321-28). One way of implementing this existentialist orientation is to foreground Rizal’s development as a versatile artist- thinker, his gradual maturation by force of circumstance from a quasi- romantic reformist public intellectual to a radical-democratic revolutionist, as Fr. John Schumacher has suggested (1987). After completing the Noli, Rizal was already a revolutionist, confident that “the peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for Spain will never learn the lesson of her former South American colonies” (letter to Blumentritt dated 26 January 1887, cited in Cushner 1971, 225). The discordant vortices of natural endowment and historical opportunities converge in this metamorphosis of Rizal’s world-outlook.
The inaugural moment of the psyche’s reflexivity, as we have discussed earlier, is the aborted affair with Segunda Katigbak, circa 1878-79. Rizal was 16 years old when he met her in Trozo where his maternal grandmother resided at that time. He found the “sylph” alluring,
Trauma of Counter-Identity
In Either/Or and other texts, Kierkegaard defined the alternative modalities of living with Others endowed with the power of recognition or refusal. They are inscribed in the tortuous passage from the aesthetic to the ethical and then to the religious domains characterized by “the baptism of the will” (1946, 107-08; 129-30). For Rizal, however, the leap into faith is circumvented by his rationalist disposition acquired during his European schooling. Aside from frailocracy’s stranglehold, the path of orthodox piety is blocked by the commitment to the mother/nation, a universal category, in which immanent martyrdom aborts mystifying transcendence. The ideal of honor, self-esteem (pundonor or amor propio), grounded in his appreciation of native practices, also thwarts subservience to dogmatic absolutism. The Kierkegaardian concept of repetition, the recollection of past experiences superimposed on a future trajectory of conduct, has distinguished Rizal’s handling of his affairs with women. Nostalgic retrospection marks all his letters from Europe, syncopated with dreams of retrieving the years of childhood innocence and customary family/clan solidarity.
But Rizal was not a naive idealist habitually looking backwards. He was always forward-looking, given to utopian speculations (for his Dapitan experiments, see Craig 1913; Zaide 1984; for the Borneo scheme, see Rizal 2011, 321-28). One way of implementing this existentialist orientation is to foreground Rizal’s development as a versatile artist- thinker, his gradual maturation by force of circumstance from a quasi- romantic reformist public intellectual to a radical-democratic revolutionist, as Fr. John Schumacher has suggested (1987). After completing the Noli, Rizal was already a revolutionist, confident that “the peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for Spain will never learn the lesson of her former South American colonies” (letter to Blumentritt dated 26 January 1887, cited in Cushner 1971, 225). The discordant vortices of natural endowment and historical opportunities converge in this metamorphosis of Rizal’s world-outlook.
The inaugural moment of the psyche’s reflexivity, as we have discussed earlier, is the aborted affair with Segunda Katigbak, circa 1878-79. Rizal was 16 years old when he met her in Trozo where his maternal grandmother resided at that time. He found the “sylph” alluring,
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Her engagement to a townmate in Lipa, Batangas, may have deterred Rizal from proposing. But he blamed his shyness when he failed to detain her carriage as it passed by for the imagined tryst he had carefully prepared in his mind. In his Memoirs, she is represented as a swift ”floating shadow.”
At the time when Rizal’s mother was losing her eyesight and could not recognize her son, the son remembers his first love’s expressive eyes, ”ardent at times, and drooping at other times, a smile so bewitching and provocative,” while her entire self “diffused a mysterious charm” (1984, 308). Rizal was paralyzed, saying nothing. And so, later on, he drew this painful lesson of disenchantment that would haunt him for a long time:
[Segunda Katigbak] bowed to me smiling and waving her handkerchief, I just lifted up my hand and said nothing. Alas! Such has always happened to me in the most painful moments of my life. My tongue, profuse talker, becomes dumb when my heart is bursting with feelings... In the critical moments of my life, I have always acted against my will, obeying different purposes and mighty doubts. I goaded my horse and took another road without having chosen it, exclaiming: This is ended thus. Ah, how much truth, how much meaning, these words then had! My youthful and trusting love ended! The first hours of my first love ended. My virgin heart will forever weep the risky step it took in the abyss covered with flowers. My illusion will return, indeed, but indifferent, incomprehensible, preparing me for the first deception on the road of grief” (1984, 317).
The montage of illusions would unfold quickly. After this traumatic wound whose scars would rankle for a long time, Rizal slowly recovered via the phantoms of Miss L. of Calamba with “seductive and attractive eyes,” and of Leonor Valenzuela of Pagsanjan, Laguna. A recharging station on the way to his sacrifice for the motherland was Leonor Rivera of Camiling, Tarlac, who attracted him as a tender “budding flower with kindly, wistful eyes.”Again, the beloved’s enthralling eyes, surveillance without relief. Leonor’s mother objected, so Rizal’s parents advised him not to visit her in Dagupan when he returned from Europe. It was the ultimatum to abjure the local femme fatale and circumvent residual elective affinities with previous acquaintances.
Occlusions and Disclosures
Goodbye, Leonor, and welcome our other sisters who beckoned, mournful sirens languishing in moribund Europe. In 1890, while attending a play in Teatro Apollo, Madrid, Rizal lost his gold watch chain with a locket containing the picture of Leonor, a weird omen. Remember Maria
At the time when Rizal’s mother was losing her eyesight and could not recognize her son, the son remembers his first love’s expressive eyes, ”ardent at times, and drooping at other times, a smile so bewitching and provocative,” while her entire self “diffused a mysterious charm” (1984, 308). Rizal was paralyzed, saying nothing. And so, later on, he drew this painful lesson of disenchantment that would haunt him for a long time:
[Segunda Katigbak] bowed to me smiling and waving her handkerchief, I just lifted up my hand and said nothing. Alas! Such has always happened to me in the most painful moments of my life. My tongue, profuse talker, becomes dumb when my heart is bursting with feelings... In the critical moments of my life, I have always acted against my will, obeying different purposes and mighty doubts. I goaded my horse and took another road without having chosen it, exclaiming: This is ended thus. Ah, how much truth, how much meaning, these words then had! My youthful and trusting love ended! The first hours of my first love ended. My virgin heart will forever weep the risky step it took in the abyss covered with flowers. My illusion will return, indeed, but indifferent, incomprehensible, preparing me for the first deception on the road of grief” (1984, 317).
The montage of illusions would unfold quickly. After this traumatic wound whose scars would rankle for a long time, Rizal slowly recovered via the phantoms of Miss L. of Calamba with “seductive and attractive eyes,” and of Leonor Valenzuela of Pagsanjan, Laguna. A recharging station on the way to his sacrifice for the motherland was Leonor Rivera of Camiling, Tarlac, who attracted him as a tender “budding flower with kindly, wistful eyes.”Again, the beloved’s enthralling eyes, surveillance without relief. Leonor’s mother objected, so Rizal’s parents advised him not to visit her in Dagupan when he returned from Europe. It was the ultimatum to abjure the local femme fatale and circumvent residual elective affinities with previous acquaintances.
Occlusions and Disclosures
Goodbye, Leonor, and welcome our other sisters who beckoned, mournful sirens languishing in moribund Europe. In 1890, while attending a play in Teatro Apollo, Madrid, Rizal lost his gold watch chain with a locket containing the picture of Leonor, a weird omen. Remember Maria
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Clara’s locket given to the leper, then owned by Juli, and finally claimedby Simoun? Subsequently, Rizal received Leonor’s letter announcing her forthcoming marriage to an Englishman (the British engineer Edward Kipping), her mother’s choice.
In contrast, Maria Clara (modeled after Leonor) lost her mother early, so it was another father (Padre Damaso) who dictated her choice, her quarantine in the convent “safeguarded” by the cagey Padre Salvi. Leonor asked for forgiveness, but Rizal broke down, agonizing for weeks, comparing himself to an immense volcano exploding and “putting an end to everything living and breathing.” His Austrian correspondent Ferdinand Blumentritt tried to console him with folkloric, homegrown platitudes:
...but you are one of the heroes who conquer pain from a wound inflicted by women, because they follow higher ends. You have a courageous heart, and you are in love with a nobler woman, the Motherland. Filipinas is like one of those enchanted princesses in the German legends, who is a captive of a horrid dragon, until she is freed by a valiant knight....I am grieved with all my heart that you have lost the girl to whom you were engaged, but if she was able to renounce a Rizal, she did not possess the nobility of your spirit. She is like a child who cast away a diamond to seize a pebble....In other words, she is not the woman for Rizal (quoted in Zaide 1984, 180).
Is it possible that Blumentritt had in mind Rizal’s 1882 essay “Amor Patrio”? Rizal affirmed this love of “patria” (motherland) “just as the child loves its mother in the midst of hunger and misery.” We follow the procession of the children in his fiction: Basilio, Crispin, Elias, Juli, Tano, Placido Penitente, Isagani, and other nameless orphans.
Before Leonor’s confession of infidelity in 1890, Rizal seemed to have been bewitched by Consuelo Ortiga y Perez. It was shortlived; he had to give way to his rival, Eduardo de Lete. It was only in Japan on his second trip to Europe in 1888 when he met 23-year-old O-Sei-San, a samurai’s daughter, that he may have experienced carnal bliss. With a geisha’s simulacra? It is impossibe to test the veracity of his record of intimacy in this quite exceptional liaison.
Rizal’s testimony can be taken as sincere, unless he is pretending to be the victim of Orientalist fantasies: “O Sei-San, Sayonara, Sayonara! I have spent a happy golden month; I do not know if I can have another one like that in all my life...No woman like you has ever loved me. No woman like you has ever sacrificed for me. Like the flower of he chodji that falls from the stem fresh and whole without falling leaves or without withering—with poetry still despite its fall—thus you fell. Neither have you lost your purity nor have the delicate petals of your innocence faded...Your name lives in the sight of my lips, your image accompanies and animates all my thoughts. When shall I
In contrast, Maria Clara (modeled after Leonor) lost her mother early, so it was another father (Padre Damaso) who dictated her choice, her quarantine in the convent “safeguarded” by the cagey Padre Salvi. Leonor asked for forgiveness, but Rizal broke down, agonizing for weeks, comparing himself to an immense volcano exploding and “putting an end to everything living and breathing.” His Austrian correspondent Ferdinand Blumentritt tried to console him with folkloric, homegrown platitudes:
...but you are one of the heroes who conquer pain from a wound inflicted by women, because they follow higher ends. You have a courageous heart, and you are in love with a nobler woman, the Motherland. Filipinas is like one of those enchanted princesses in the German legends, who is a captive of a horrid dragon, until she is freed by a valiant knight....I am grieved with all my heart that you have lost the girl to whom you were engaged, but if she was able to renounce a Rizal, she did not possess the nobility of your spirit. She is like a child who cast away a diamond to seize a pebble....In other words, she is not the woman for Rizal (quoted in Zaide 1984, 180).
Is it possible that Blumentritt had in mind Rizal’s 1882 essay “Amor Patrio”? Rizal affirmed this love of “patria” (motherland) “just as the child loves its mother in the midst of hunger and misery.” We follow the procession of the children in his fiction: Basilio, Crispin, Elias, Juli, Tano, Placido Penitente, Isagani, and other nameless orphans.
Before Leonor’s confession of infidelity in 1890, Rizal seemed to have been bewitched by Consuelo Ortiga y Perez. It was shortlived; he had to give way to his rival, Eduardo de Lete. It was only in Japan on his second trip to Europe in 1888 when he met 23-year-old O-Sei-San, a samurai’s daughter, that he may have experienced carnal bliss. With a geisha’s simulacra? It is impossibe to test the veracity of his record of intimacy in this quite exceptional liaison.
Rizal’s testimony can be taken as sincere, unless he is pretending to be the victim of Orientalist fantasies: “O Sei-San, Sayonara, Sayonara! I have spent a happy golden month; I do not know if I can have another one like that in all my life...No woman like you has ever loved me. No woman like you has ever sacrificed for me. Like the flower of he chodji that falls from the stem fresh and whole without falling leaves or without withering—with poetry still despite its fall—thus you fell. Neither have you lost your purity nor have the delicate petals of your innocence faded...Your name lives in the sight of my lips, your image accompanies and animates all my thoughts. When shall I
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return to pass another divine afternoon like that in the temple of Meguro?” (quoted in Zaide 1984, 132).
Rizal’s apostrophe extolled his Japanese companion as the “last descendant of a noble family, faithful to an unfortunate vengeance....” What the last two words signify remains a puzzle. Is it simply an extravagant cliche to compensate for an unresolved aporia of doubts, virile pride and intractable premonitions? Or is it a vow to fulfill a long- forgotten promise?
Deterritorializing Interlude
We follow Rizal in his peregrination. Next in line was Gertrude Beckett with brown hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, the oldest of three sisters in his boarding house at Primrose Hill, London, near Frederick Engels’ residence. But though the flirtation became hot and heavy, as it were, Rizal quickly realized that he could not marry Gettie. It was at this time (22 February 1889) when Rizal composed in Tagalog his provocative “Letter to the Young Women of Malolos.”
We may pass over the episode with Petite Suzanne Jacoby who pursued him with her letters in French when he fled to Madrid in July 1890. Rizal confided to his sister Soledad: “In my love affairs, I have always acted with nobility, because I myself would have felt humiliated had I behaved otherwise. I have despised and considered unworthy every young man I have seen hiding himself, prowling in the dark...” Earlier he expressed the reason for his temporizing and diffidence: “I cannot deceive her; I can’t marry her, because I have other affections to remember in our country.... (Palma 1949, 130, 133). What are these other affections?
Neither ascetic nor hedonist, Rizal did not isolate himself, vowing chastity and performing rituals of self-purification. The next challenge was posed by Nellie Boustead. In romantic Biarritz, Rizal courted Nellie who supposedly reciprocated. But Nellie’s mother registered objections, and Nellie herself required Rizal to become a Protestant, which he shrugged off. His friends Tomas Areola and Antonio Luna encouraged Rizal to choose the matrimonial path, to no avail. it was only when Josephine Bracken came to Dapitan, accompanying the blind Englishman George Taufer, that Rizal recovered, with due qualifications, the unrepeatable experience he recorded with his Japanese muse. That was also the year, 1893, when Rizal received the news of Leonor Rivera’s death.
The historian Ambeth Ocampo psychoanalyzed the recurrence of snakes as phalllic symbols in Rizal’s dreams. A trivializing suspicion. He speculated that Rizal may have been a closet gay: “It dawned on me that the fact that Rizal had many women [“had” is arguably a masculinist hyperbole] was probably an indication that he was incapable or perhaps had difficulty in
Rizal’s apostrophe extolled his Japanese companion as the “last descendant of a noble family, faithful to an unfortunate vengeance....” What the last two words signify remains a puzzle. Is it simply an extravagant cliche to compensate for an unresolved aporia of doubts, virile pride and intractable premonitions? Or is it a vow to fulfill a long- forgotten promise?
Deterritorializing Interlude
We follow Rizal in his peregrination. Next in line was Gertrude Beckett with brown hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, the oldest of three sisters in his boarding house at Primrose Hill, London, near Frederick Engels’ residence. But though the flirtation became hot and heavy, as it were, Rizal quickly realized that he could not marry Gettie. It was at this time (22 February 1889) when Rizal composed in Tagalog his provocative “Letter to the Young Women of Malolos.”
We may pass over the episode with Petite Suzanne Jacoby who pursued him with her letters in French when he fled to Madrid in July 1890. Rizal confided to his sister Soledad: “In my love affairs, I have always acted with nobility, because I myself would have felt humiliated had I behaved otherwise. I have despised and considered unworthy every young man I have seen hiding himself, prowling in the dark...” Earlier he expressed the reason for his temporizing and diffidence: “I cannot deceive her; I can’t marry her, because I have other affections to remember in our country.... (Palma 1949, 130, 133). What are these other affections?
Neither ascetic nor hedonist, Rizal did not isolate himself, vowing chastity and performing rituals of self-purification. The next challenge was posed by Nellie Boustead. In romantic Biarritz, Rizal courted Nellie who supposedly reciprocated. But Nellie’s mother registered objections, and Nellie herself required Rizal to become a Protestant, which he shrugged off. His friends Tomas Areola and Antonio Luna encouraged Rizal to choose the matrimonial path, to no avail. it was only when Josephine Bracken came to Dapitan, accompanying the blind Englishman George Taufer, that Rizal recovered, with due qualifications, the unrepeatable experience he recorded with his Japanese muse. That was also the year, 1893, when Rizal received the news of Leonor Rivera’s death.
The historian Ambeth Ocampo psychoanalyzed the recurrence of snakes as phalllic symbols in Rizal’s dreams. A trivializing suspicion. He speculated that Rizal may have been a closet gay: “It dawned on me that the fact that Rizal had many women [“had” is arguably a masculinist hyperbole] was probably an indication that he was incapable or perhaps had difficulty in
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maintaining a stable relationship with one woman” (2011, 67-68)—except with patria, which, for Ocampo, was too lofty, too inhuman. No one has claimed that Rizal “possessed” any of his female acquaintances except perhaps O- Sei-San and Bracken.
Finally, Ocampo contends that given the unresolved Oedipus complex, Rizal could have been a homosexual. But his yearning for his Nanay, Rizal’s idolizing his mother, was “very Filipino,” Ocampo concludes, so that could not serve as a proof of homosexuality. But why deflect the inquiry to this topic, obscuring the gendered division of social labor (including reproductive/sexual behavior) that undergirds the androcentric system?
Encountering the Irish Sibyl
The coming of Josephine Bracken, a “wandering swallow” for Rizal, disrupts this maneuver to dismiss “the woman question” as superfluous if not irrelevant. To return to Anderson’s aside on Rizal’s sexuality, the scholar’s tactic is to demonstrate that the milieu rendered in the novels witnessed gay and lesbian practices thriving without any overt stigmatization, as in Chapter 21, “Manila Characters,” and Chapter 22, “The Performance.” It’s all very entertaining if not distracting. So what?
In truth, Anderson does not have anything worthwhile to say about Sisa, Juli, Salome, Dona Consolacion, nor about Segunda Katigbak, O-Sei- San, Leonor Rivera, etc. His references to Bracken are a summary of inferences made by Coates, Guerrero, and Ocampo regarding her spurious progenitors. Since she was not of authentic Irish provenance—her mother was alleged to be a Chinese laundress, the father unknown, and therefore Bracken could not be evidence of Rizal’s heteronormal disposition. Anderson devotes three pages to Rizal’s Dapitan exile but ignores any role Bracken may have played in the martyr’s struggle to endure his punishment.
Only Dolores Feria, among a plethora of feminist scholars, succeeded in defining the role of the 19-year-old Bracken as the “missing menber. ” While sutured to the Rizal narrative by fortuitous circumstance, she could not eclipse the formidable Teodora Alonzo. The stern mother and her daughters objected to Bracken’s rejoining Rizal in Dapitan after Tauffer’s ailment was somehow relieved. The Catholic priest Father Obach who refused to marry them was scandalized when the two held hands together and married themselves.
Rizal’s mother resigned herself to this unorthodox arrangement—the authorities tolerated the hybrid Bracken as a legitimate phenomenon within the querida system. Alonzo opined that it was better to “live in concubinage in the grace of God than to be married in disgrace” (Palma 1949, 254). Due to an accident, Bracken prematurely delivered an eight-month old baby boy
Finally, Ocampo contends that given the unresolved Oedipus complex, Rizal could have been a homosexual. But his yearning for his Nanay, Rizal’s idolizing his mother, was “very Filipino,” Ocampo concludes, so that could not serve as a proof of homosexuality. But why deflect the inquiry to this topic, obscuring the gendered division of social labor (including reproductive/sexual behavior) that undergirds the androcentric system?
Encountering the Irish Sibyl
The coming of Josephine Bracken, a “wandering swallow” for Rizal, disrupts this maneuver to dismiss “the woman question” as superfluous if not irrelevant. To return to Anderson’s aside on Rizal’s sexuality, the scholar’s tactic is to demonstrate that the milieu rendered in the novels witnessed gay and lesbian practices thriving without any overt stigmatization, as in Chapter 21, “Manila Characters,” and Chapter 22, “The Performance.” It’s all very entertaining if not distracting. So what?
In truth, Anderson does not have anything worthwhile to say about Sisa, Juli, Salome, Dona Consolacion, nor about Segunda Katigbak, O-Sei- San, Leonor Rivera, etc. His references to Bracken are a summary of inferences made by Coates, Guerrero, and Ocampo regarding her spurious progenitors. Since she was not of authentic Irish provenance—her mother was alleged to be a Chinese laundress, the father unknown, and therefore Bracken could not be evidence of Rizal’s heteronormal disposition. Anderson devotes three pages to Rizal’s Dapitan exile but ignores any role Bracken may have played in the martyr’s struggle to endure his punishment.
Only Dolores Feria, among a plethora of feminist scholars, succeeded in defining the role of the 19-year-old Bracken as the “missing menber. ” While sutured to the Rizal narrative by fortuitous circumstance, she could not eclipse the formidable Teodora Alonzo. The stern mother and her daughters objected to Bracken’s rejoining Rizal in Dapitan after Tauffer’s ailment was somehow relieved. The Catholic priest Father Obach who refused to marry them was scandalized when the two held hands together and married themselves.
Rizal’s mother resigned herself to this unorthodox arrangement—the authorities tolerated the hybrid Bracken as a legitimate phenomenon within the querida system. Alonzo opined that it was better to “live in concubinage in the grace of God than to be married in disgrace” (Palma 1949, 254). Due to an accident, Bracken prematurely delivered an eight-month old baby boy
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whom they christened “Francisco” (in honor of the hero’s father) before burial (Zaide 1948, 240; Craig 1913, 123-25). Rizal thus vanquished both the ancestral totem taboo, the archaic fetish of the virgin bride, and the myth of his indeterminate sexuality.
Visionary Swerves
So many nearly Faustian accomplishments transpired in Dapitan. We can only cite here one fulfilling act: Rizal proved the value of his medical studies when he successfully operated on his mother’s eyes. His education was not wasted; he was already earning a doctor’s income in Hong Kong before his fateful return to Manila. A few days before he left for Spain as a medical volunteer for the beleaguered Spanish army in Cuba, the plebeian Andres Bonifacio fired the first volleys of revolution on August 26, 1896. Rizal was impicated and brought back to Manila, imprisoned in Fort Santiago, and condemned to death by a military court which had already agreed on its verdict before the trial.
Before his execution, Rizal bequeathed his copy of Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ to Bracken, with the dedication “To my dear and unhappy wife.” She was also memoralized in Rizal’s “Ultimo Adios” in the penultimate line: “Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way.” This “dulce extranghera” later marched and fought with the Katipunan detachment together with Rizal’s brother Paciano, fighting Spanish soldiers in Cavite, Laguna, and the surrounding hinterland before she was finally persuaded by her fellow partisans to return to Hong Kong and assist the revolution from that relatively secure vantage point.
As cited earlier, Feria paid homage to Bracken’s participation in the armed struggle against imperial Spain. Bracken’s role as Insurrecta offers the direct antithesis to the iconic Colegiala, the model for the Maria Clara character-type. Feria compares her with Salome, the polar opposite of the convent-bred woman, recalling for us the legendary figure of the earth- goddess Maria Makiling, naturally generous, an emancipated spirit. Her power to give joy to Elias, her beloved, may be deemed “an act of grace, with its own moral justification.” Feria elaborates further:
The orphan Salome...anticipates the twentieth-century woman’s frankness and sexual freedom and the pre-Spanish Filipina’s ignorance of original sin...Josephine, like Salome, was an outsider...[She] has been successively portrayed as Magdalene, Mata Hari, Kitty O’Shea, Sadie Thompson, and Joan of Arc; but her own preferred image of herself was as Insurrecta. In fact our last really detailed glimpse of her, provided by the memoirs of General Ricarte, shows Josephine fleeing from barrio to barrio after the Spanish capture of San Francisco de Malabon, hungry, and the
Visionary Swerves
So many nearly Faustian accomplishments transpired in Dapitan. We can only cite here one fulfilling act: Rizal proved the value of his medical studies when he successfully operated on his mother’s eyes. His education was not wasted; he was already earning a doctor’s income in Hong Kong before his fateful return to Manila. A few days before he left for Spain as a medical volunteer for the beleaguered Spanish army in Cuba, the plebeian Andres Bonifacio fired the first volleys of revolution on August 26, 1896. Rizal was impicated and brought back to Manila, imprisoned in Fort Santiago, and condemned to death by a military court which had already agreed on its verdict before the trial.
Before his execution, Rizal bequeathed his copy of Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ to Bracken, with the dedication “To my dear and unhappy wife.” She was also memoralized in Rizal’s “Ultimo Adios” in the penultimate line: “Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way.” This “dulce extranghera” later marched and fought with the Katipunan detachment together with Rizal’s brother Paciano, fighting Spanish soldiers in Cavite, Laguna, and the surrounding hinterland before she was finally persuaded by her fellow partisans to return to Hong Kong and assist the revolution from that relatively secure vantage point.
As cited earlier, Feria paid homage to Bracken’s participation in the armed struggle against imperial Spain. Bracken’s role as Insurrecta offers the direct antithesis to the iconic Colegiala, the model for the Maria Clara character-type. Feria compares her with Salome, the polar opposite of the convent-bred woman, recalling for us the legendary figure of the earth- goddess Maria Makiling, naturally generous, an emancipated spirit. Her power to give joy to Elias, her beloved, may be deemed “an act of grace, with its own moral justification.” Feria elaborates further:
The orphan Salome...anticipates the twentieth-century woman’s frankness and sexual freedom and the pre-Spanish Filipina’s ignorance of original sin...Josephine, like Salome, was an outsider...[She] has been successively portrayed as Magdalene, Mata Hari, Kitty O’Shea, Sadie Thompson, and Joan of Arc; but her own preferred image of herself was as Insurrecta. In fact our last really detailed glimpse of her, provided by the memoirs of General Ricarte, shows Josephine fleeing from barrio to barrio after the Spanish capture of San Francisco de Malabon, hungry, and the
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soles of her feet bleeding, but refusing to lag, as the long retreat moves across the Maragondon mountains to Laguna...Josephine signifies more in the experience of Rizal than simply an imprudent infatuation or the eroticism of pity...For Rizal, Josephine Bracken was a breath of fresh air; and in her he found an expression of freedom from class restraints, conventionality, and a practical impertinence which his own original environment, the conservatism of his family and friends had so long denied him. Indeed, Josephine was Rizal (1968, 110-20).
This substantial homage to Josephine Bracken as an integral part of the Rizal saga may neutralize all suspicions regarding the hero’s performative sexuality. He could live with strangeness, even the phantasm of Bracken’s enigmatic past, because he knew her before in the volatile conduct and catalyzing disguises of Segunda Katigbak, Leonor Rivera, Consuelo Ortigas, and the foreigners O-Sei-San, Petite Jacoby, and Nellie Boustead, not excluding the veiled countenance of the “hospitality” lady of Vienna.
Articulating the Excess/Exclusion
At this juncture, I would call attention to the previously excluded chapter on “Salome and Elias,” now restored by Soledad Lacson-Locsin in her expert translation of the novel. This episode rounds out Elias’ character as more than a capable, intelligent peasant victimized by adverse circumstances. In contrast to the naive Ibarra (in the Noli), Elias personifies the cunning “labor of the negative” by claiming that he loves his native land because he owes her so much pain and misery” (Agoncillo 1969, 39). He is adored by a mature, sensitive woman who respects him and allows him the final decision to leave her for her own sake so that she won’t be persecuted as his accomplice. We hear Rizal’s parting words to his intimate acquaintances in Europe: “Take advantage of your youth and beauty to look for a good husband whom you deserve. No, no, you still do not know what it is to live alone, alone in the midst of humanity” (Noli 2004, 216).
In effect, Rizal knew himself thoroughly as a marked protagonist, soon to be a dangerous dissident. This dates back from the time he penned Amor Patrio, “A La Juventud Filipina,” his annotations to Morga, the incendiary diatribes and polemics in La Solidaridad, and certainly the two explosive novels that no doubt contributed to inciting his countrymen to organize the Katipunan and launch the national uprising of 1896, morphing into the stubborn resistance to U.S. imperial aggression and its ferocious genocidal onslaught.
This substantial homage to Josephine Bracken as an integral part of the Rizal saga may neutralize all suspicions regarding the hero’s performative sexuality. He could live with strangeness, even the phantasm of Bracken’s enigmatic past, because he knew her before in the volatile conduct and catalyzing disguises of Segunda Katigbak, Leonor Rivera, Consuelo Ortigas, and the foreigners O-Sei-San, Petite Jacoby, and Nellie Boustead, not excluding the veiled countenance of the “hospitality” lady of Vienna.
Articulating the Excess/Exclusion
At this juncture, I would call attention to the previously excluded chapter on “Salome and Elias,” now restored by Soledad Lacson-Locsin in her expert translation of the novel. This episode rounds out Elias’ character as more than a capable, intelligent peasant victimized by adverse circumstances. In contrast to the naive Ibarra (in the Noli), Elias personifies the cunning “labor of the negative” by claiming that he loves his native land because he owes her so much pain and misery” (Agoncillo 1969, 39). He is adored by a mature, sensitive woman who respects him and allows him the final decision to leave her for her own sake so that she won’t be persecuted as his accomplice. We hear Rizal’s parting words to his intimate acquaintances in Europe: “Take advantage of your youth and beauty to look for a good husband whom you deserve. No, no, you still do not know what it is to live alone, alone in the midst of humanity” (Noli 2004, 216).
In effect, Rizal knew himself thoroughly as a marked protagonist, soon to be a dangerous dissident. This dates back from the time he penned Amor Patrio, “A La Juventud Filipina,” his annotations to Morga, the incendiary diatribes and polemics in La Solidaridad, and certainly the two explosive novels that no doubt contributed to inciting his countrymen to organize the Katipunan and launch the national uprising of 1896, morphing into the stubborn resistance to U.S. imperial aggression and its ferocious genocidal onslaught.
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As for the controversy over Rizal’s alleged retraction and marriage to Bracken, which Zaide dismissed as immaterial to the hero’s achievement (1984, 255-56; for a different view, see Pascual 1962), I refer students to ponder on the various perspectives explored in the scripts of two screenplays by Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. and Mike de Leon, Rizal/ Bayaning 3rd World (2000). A rigorous study of Rizal’s writings in the context of the historical specificities of their appearance, as well as their impact, would be the most judicious way of appraising the worth and pertinacity of the controversy (San Juan 2000).
Constellation of Motives
Initially conceived as an extended metacommentary on Rizal’s message to the women of Malolos, this essay has exceeded its intended goal. But one thing leads to another, as they say. Not only because one cannot really grasp the totality of Rizal’s impact on the popular consciousness, including ilustrado and plebeian interlocutors. But with “the woman question,” every element in the fabric of his discourses and their purport counts as an integral factor/force in determining their reality- effects, their consequence in action. Past melancholia and future hopes converge in his reflections on the harsh present.
Rizal pursued a mode of inquiry similar to that of Rosa Luxemburg who applied Marx’s logic of crises and ruptures. Frigga Haug describes how Luxemburg’s method of appealing to the masses rejects empathy with the wretched situation of the oppressed: “Instead of empathy, she seeks the germs of the future in the defects of the present. This approach is disconcerting because it is alien, familiar only in the form of hope. But by presenting hope as sadness about being torn free and dispossessed, her criticism becomes truly radical...Her route goes out into the world, not back into the home....This politicization of experience, the political articulation of everyday experience, the transformation of the wish to endure into the will to change—these things are indispensable for women’s politics” (1992, 230-43). From the wish simply to survive to “the will to change”--that formulation captures quite aptly the Desire called “Rizal” parlayed into this current project.
In this perspective, Rizal was not simply a moralist endeavoring to educate the minds and dispositions of his compatriots. Nor was he simply deploying a conscienticizing agency whose efficacy transcends the aesthetic reach of his novels. He was instilling hope by politicizing everyday experience, transmuting the instinct of self-preservation into “the will to change”—precisely his message to the women of Malolos, a dynamic conatus (to use Spinoza’s concept) embodied in the barbed insinuations and innuendoes of the Noli and Fili.
Constellation of Motives
Initially conceived as an extended metacommentary on Rizal’s message to the women of Malolos, this essay has exceeded its intended goal. But one thing leads to another, as they say. Not only because one cannot really grasp the totality of Rizal’s impact on the popular consciousness, including ilustrado and plebeian interlocutors. But with “the woman question,” every element in the fabric of his discourses and their purport counts as an integral factor/force in determining their reality- effects, their consequence in action. Past melancholia and future hopes converge in his reflections on the harsh present.
Rizal pursued a mode of inquiry similar to that of Rosa Luxemburg who applied Marx’s logic of crises and ruptures. Frigga Haug describes how Luxemburg’s method of appealing to the masses rejects empathy with the wretched situation of the oppressed: “Instead of empathy, she seeks the germs of the future in the defects of the present. This approach is disconcerting because it is alien, familiar only in the form of hope. But by presenting hope as sadness about being torn free and dispossessed, her criticism becomes truly radical...Her route goes out into the world, not back into the home....This politicization of experience, the political articulation of everyday experience, the transformation of the wish to endure into the will to change—these things are indispensable for women’s politics” (1992, 230-43). From the wish simply to survive to “the will to change”--that formulation captures quite aptly the Desire called “Rizal” parlayed into this current project.
In this perspective, Rizal was not simply a moralist endeavoring to educate the minds and dispositions of his compatriots. Nor was he simply deploying a conscienticizing agency whose efficacy transcends the aesthetic reach of his novels. He was instilling hope by politicizing everyday experience, transmuting the instinct of self-preservation into “the will to change”—precisely his message to the women of Malolos, a dynamic conatus (to use Spinoza’s concept) embodied in the barbed insinuations and innuendoes of the Noli and Fili.
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Benedict Anderson begs to differ. He faults Rizal for being a short- sighted moralist. In contrast, Austin Coates contends that Rizal’s novels are essentially political, not literary, artifices (Ocampo 2011, 97). While elucidating the sociopolitical context of Europe in which Rizal’s ideas germinated, Anderson finds Rizal limited in depicting the brutal exploitation of natives and their social misery: “There is nothing in Rizal’s
voluminous writings like Luna’s horrified description of the Parisian iron foundry, the painter’s naively expressed, but telling remark that the Filipinos were fortunate compared with the industrial workers of Paris seems utterly outside the novelist’s frame of reference” (2005, 108).
The remark is incredibly wrong-headed and rebarbative. It pointedly ignores the quite discrepant economic and social reality of feudal/agrarian Philippines. The colony’s chief production consisted of export-crops abaca, sugar, indigo, hides, etc. Its sole industry of textile weaving in Iloilo was quickly destroyed by the importation of cheap cotton from England (Arcilla 1991, 134-46). Labor organizing in the cities in the form of gremios and embryonic cooperatives for mutual aid in the countryside only started in the first decades of U.S. colonial rule.
The colonial reality of 19th-century Philippines, its historical specificity, eludes Anderson’s optic. As already suggested, Rizal matured quickly in the aftermath of his mother’s imprisonment and the 1872 Cavite Mutiny together with the execution of Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora. His disillusionment with his compatriot’s reformist program intensified in 1890 with the eviction of his parents from their Calamba farm and the persecution of relatives (see the articles, “On the Calamba Incident” and “Justice in the Philippines”; 2011, 296-99; 317-20).
But even before that, Rizal already expressed complete disenchantement on many occasions, as evinced in the 1884 article, “Reflections of a Fiipino,” and in a letter from Madrid, dated November 1884: “Studying at Madrid disillusions me. [Filipinos are] dishonored, entrapped, debased, opposed and tyrannized. I was also there [in the mass demonstrations of students and faculty]. I had to disguise myself three times...”(Zaide 1984, 76).
Circumscribing a Paradigm-Shift
Mimesis, following Aristotle, seeks to render the configuration of experience in a plotted sequence of events. But the modern naturalistic representation of incidents could not by itself register the nuances of feelings and sentiments of the Indios undergoing the symbolic and actual violence of the colonial system. To do that, Rizal had to politicize their experiences in both domestic/familial sphere and public space. Thus we observe the heteroglossic rendering of social gatherings and the focus on
voluminous writings like Luna’s horrified description of the Parisian iron foundry, the painter’s naively expressed, but telling remark that the Filipinos were fortunate compared with the industrial workers of Paris seems utterly outside the novelist’s frame of reference” (2005, 108).
The remark is incredibly wrong-headed and rebarbative. It pointedly ignores the quite discrepant economic and social reality of feudal/agrarian Philippines. The colony’s chief production consisted of export-crops abaca, sugar, indigo, hides, etc. Its sole industry of textile weaving in Iloilo was quickly destroyed by the importation of cheap cotton from England (Arcilla 1991, 134-46). Labor organizing in the cities in the form of gremios and embryonic cooperatives for mutual aid in the countryside only started in the first decades of U.S. colonial rule.
The colonial reality of 19th-century Philippines, its historical specificity, eludes Anderson’s optic. As already suggested, Rizal matured quickly in the aftermath of his mother’s imprisonment and the 1872 Cavite Mutiny together with the execution of Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora. His disillusionment with his compatriot’s reformist program intensified in 1890 with the eviction of his parents from their Calamba farm and the persecution of relatives (see the articles, “On the Calamba Incident” and “Justice in the Philippines”; 2011, 296-99; 317-20).
But even before that, Rizal already expressed complete disenchantement on many occasions, as evinced in the 1884 article, “Reflections of a Fiipino,” and in a letter from Madrid, dated November 1884: “Studying at Madrid disillusions me. [Filipinos are] dishonored, entrapped, debased, opposed and tyrannized. I was also there [in the mass demonstrations of students and faculty]. I had to disguise myself three times...”(Zaide 1984, 76).
Circumscribing a Paradigm-Shift
Mimesis, following Aristotle, seeks to render the configuration of experience in a plotted sequence of events. But the modern naturalistic representation of incidents could not by itself register the nuances of feelings and sentiments of the Indios undergoing the symbolic and actual violence of the colonial system. To do that, Rizal had to politicize their experiences in both domestic/familial sphere and public space. Thus we observe the heteroglossic rendering of social gatherings and the focus on
14
concrete locations: busy homes of notable personages, the plaza, church, market, theater, cockpit, urban/village festival sites, prison, transport vehicles, farms, schools, leisurely retreats, graveyards, offices of bureaucrats and officials, streets and remote trails, domestic interiors, and the liminal zones between rural and urban settings. The massive repertoire of events and the spectrum of particulars marshaled are meant to produce a plausible, veridical reality-effect.
Without doubt, the milieu transcribed by the artist is labyrinthine, multilayered, enticing and bewildering at the same time. One example is the arrangement of sensorily vivid crowd scenes in Makamisa, including the ribald, mock-heroic tuktukan game, which testifies to the writer’s virtuoso gift. Rizal’s dialogic imagination encompassed a wider range of themes, motifs, dramatis personae and their ramifications than those found in Eduard Dekker, Galdos, de Larra, Baudelaire, or Malatesta’s pseudo-sophisticated ruminations (for further evidence, see the compendium of Rizal’s Tagalog texts in Ocampo 2002)..
Granted, Rizal may have been influenced by European intellectuals such as Bakunin, Proudhon, Dostoevsky, and others during his two sojourns in Europe. Anderson, in fact, credits those myriad influences as the real sources of Rizal’s creativity, the templates for his plot and characters. He cites, for example, Rizal’s casual conversation with two Russian women nihilists in Paris in the lodging of Trinidad Pardo de Tavera.
Ferreting similitudes between European events and personalities, and the gothic/baroque furniture of the Fili, Anderson pronounces on the derivative quality of the novel: “The prolepsis is mostly engineered by a massive, ingenious transfer of real events, experiences, and sentiments from Spain to the Philippines, which then appear as shadows of an imminent future....El Filibusterismo was written from the wings of a global proscenium on which Bismarck and Vera Zasulich, Yankee manipulation and Cuban insurrections, Meiji Japan and the British Museum, Huysmans and the Commune, Catalonia and the Carolines, Nihilists and anarchists, all had their places. Cochers and ‘homeopathists’ too” (2005, 120).
Indeed, we are served a mindboggling potpourri of leavening substances to yield a buffet of exotic dishes for further meditation! At one “Soiree at the Home of Mr. B.” in Berlin (circa 1886), Rizal reflected how one “young barbarian from the Philippine Islands” exchanged pleasantries with the blonde, blue-eyed “granddaughters of ancient barbarians...who astonished the patricians of Rome,” an encounter proving how the world “turns round and round” (1962, 216).
Without doubt, the milieu transcribed by the artist is labyrinthine, multilayered, enticing and bewildering at the same time. One example is the arrangement of sensorily vivid crowd scenes in Makamisa, including the ribald, mock-heroic tuktukan game, which testifies to the writer’s virtuoso gift. Rizal’s dialogic imagination encompassed a wider range of themes, motifs, dramatis personae and their ramifications than those found in Eduard Dekker, Galdos, de Larra, Baudelaire, or Malatesta’s pseudo-sophisticated ruminations (for further evidence, see the compendium of Rizal’s Tagalog texts in Ocampo 2002)..
Granted, Rizal may have been influenced by European intellectuals such as Bakunin, Proudhon, Dostoevsky, and others during his two sojourns in Europe. Anderson, in fact, credits those myriad influences as the real sources of Rizal’s creativity, the templates for his plot and characters. He cites, for example, Rizal’s casual conversation with two Russian women nihilists in Paris in the lodging of Trinidad Pardo de Tavera.
Ferreting similitudes between European events and personalities, and the gothic/baroque furniture of the Fili, Anderson pronounces on the derivative quality of the novel: “The prolepsis is mostly engineered by a massive, ingenious transfer of real events, experiences, and sentiments from Spain to the Philippines, which then appear as shadows of an imminent future....El Filibusterismo was written from the wings of a global proscenium on which Bismarck and Vera Zasulich, Yankee manipulation and Cuban insurrections, Meiji Japan and the British Museum, Huysmans and the Commune, Catalonia and the Carolines, Nihilists and anarchists, all had their places. Cochers and ‘homeopathists’ too” (2005, 120).
Indeed, we are served a mindboggling potpourri of leavening substances to yield a buffet of exotic dishes for further meditation! At one “Soiree at the Home of Mr. B.” in Berlin (circa 1886), Rizal reflected how one “young barbarian from the Philippine Islands” exchanged pleasantries with the blonde, blue-eyed “granddaughters of ancient barbarians...who astonished the patricians of Rome,” an encounter proving how the world “turns round and round” (1962, 216).
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Anderson’s comparativist mind-set can be praised for encyclopedic erudition. But he seems too self-satisfied with his cosmopolitan bravura. He disingenuously insists on a mistaken assumption, spiced with a racist innuendo. Surely Rizal is not vying to be an epigone of Huysmans, Bakunin, Malatesta, Nietzsche, Herzen, etc. In his 1908 prologue to an edition of the Fili, Wenceslao Retana performed a similar autopsy of European influences and putative mimicry. But, unlike Anderson, Retana (despite his imperial hauteur) buttressed his assessment with allusions to the concrete experiences of the wretched subalterns. He also accentuated the singular predicament of the native intelligentsia seeking reforms.
Moreover, Retana underscored the specificity of locations and the constellation of incidents shaping Rizal’s sensibility: “During his very first years he hardly witnessed anything around him except human misery pictured on a landscape replete with melancholy and mysterious poetry; and stimulated by an exquisite nervous sensibility, the child Rizal, on the shores of the great lake which gives its name to the province (la Laguna) asked whether there was beyond, any social state better than the one he saw in his hometown, in the urban part of which he knew the dominant despotism of the friar-landholder; and the suburban part of which the bandits govern” (1979, 33-34).
The “bandits” noted here would epitomize the numerous Indio victims with their load of grievances against colonial authorities (both civil and religious) in that period. Filibusteros included women protesting their brutalization by their husbands or confessors, beggars who became outlaws (tulisan), and heretics labeled infidels or savages by the theocratic regime.
In the lifetime of Rizal’s parents, filibusterismo was already rampant. Examples are the1815 Sarrat rebellion, the 1823 Novales revolt, the 1832-41 uprising of the Cofradia followers of Apolinario de la Cruz, the 1872 Cavite Mutiny, to cite only the most dangerous or threatening to the status quo (Constantino 1975, 132-44). In his “Data for My Defense” written in Fort Santiago, Rizal enumerated some of those separatist movements (2011, 342). A sampling of native grievances can be gleaned from the satirical articles such as “A Freethinker,” “A Pompous Gobernadorcillo,” “The Vision of Fray Rodriguez,” “By Telephone,” “The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands,” “The Religiosity of the Filipino People,” aside from the more widely influential diatribes such as “The Indolence of the Filipinos,” “The Philippines a Century Hence,” and other relevant documents in Tagalog (see Ocampo 2002).
Apocalyptic Reverberations
Moreover, Retana underscored the specificity of locations and the constellation of incidents shaping Rizal’s sensibility: “During his very first years he hardly witnessed anything around him except human misery pictured on a landscape replete with melancholy and mysterious poetry; and stimulated by an exquisite nervous sensibility, the child Rizal, on the shores of the great lake which gives its name to the province (la Laguna) asked whether there was beyond, any social state better than the one he saw in his hometown, in the urban part of which he knew the dominant despotism of the friar-landholder; and the suburban part of which the bandits govern” (1979, 33-34).
The “bandits” noted here would epitomize the numerous Indio victims with their load of grievances against colonial authorities (both civil and religious) in that period. Filibusteros included women protesting their brutalization by their husbands or confessors, beggars who became outlaws (tulisan), and heretics labeled infidels or savages by the theocratic regime.
In the lifetime of Rizal’s parents, filibusterismo was already rampant. Examples are the1815 Sarrat rebellion, the 1823 Novales revolt, the 1832-41 uprising of the Cofradia followers of Apolinario de la Cruz, the 1872 Cavite Mutiny, to cite only the most dangerous or threatening to the status quo (Constantino 1975, 132-44). In his “Data for My Defense” written in Fort Santiago, Rizal enumerated some of those separatist movements (2011, 342). A sampling of native grievances can be gleaned from the satirical articles such as “A Freethinker,” “A Pompous Gobernadorcillo,” “The Vision of Fray Rodriguez,” “By Telephone,” “The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands,” “The Religiosity of the Filipino People,” aside from the more widely influential diatribes such as “The Indolence of the Filipinos,” “The Philippines a Century Hence,” and other relevant documents in Tagalog (see Ocampo 2002).
Apocalyptic Reverberations
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One can argue that Retana’s journalistic sensorium was better adjusted to apprehend the historically specific conflicts and crises that informed Rizal’s worldview. Retana recorded the ethos of the rural countryside, the predatory feudal monstrosities, and one native response to the regime’s barbarism that Rizal may have condensed in the following paragraph: “When a people is gagged; when its dignity, honor, and all its liberties are trampled; when it no longer has any legal recourse against the tyranny of its oppressors; when its complaints, petitions, and groans are not attended to; when it is not permitted even to weep; when even the last hope is wrested from its heart, then....it has left no other remedy but to take down with delirious hand from the infernal altars the bloody and suicidal dagger of revolution! Caesar, we who are about to die salute thee!” (2011, 129; see also Retana 1979, 146-47). Echoes of Padre Florentino’s farewell prayer to the dead Simoun?
The concept of the Kantian sublime predominant in Rizal’s melodramatic staging animates the conclusion of the essay “The Sense of the Beautiful” in which the ancestors shed their tears on the child’s cradle “so that the sacred plant of liberty and progress may bloom” (1962, 32). Friedrich Schiller, author of the play William Tell which Rizal translated into Tagalog, once declared that one encounters and actualizes freedom/ autonomy through the creation of beauty as “living form” via the calibrated, nuanced play of instinct and reason(1952, 407-08). Rizal was thoroughly acquainted with this solution to the quandary of the artist grappling with the recalcitrant, refractory materials of quotidian existence.
Aesthetics mediates the ethico-political burden of Rizal’ s narrative craft. It is Intriguing how the image and voice of the Roman slave- gladiators acknowledging the glory of the Emperor (quoted earlier) recall Juan Luna’s masterpiece, El Spoliarium. The painting depicted in sombre tone the gory gladiators’ corpses, their sacrificial tribute, dragged from the arena of combat in the Roman amphitheater. Rizal celebrated Luna’s evocation of the carnage as a sign of resurrection—a prelude to the planned fireworks of Simoun/Ibarra, this double agent of a repressed community, passionately envisaging the apocalyptic triumph of his cohort of avengers.
In Luna’s painting, according to Rizal, “can be heard the tumult of the multitude, the shouting of the slaves, the metalllic creaking of the armor of the corpses, the sobs of the bereaved, the murmurs of prayer, with such vigor and realism as one hears the din of thunder in the midst of the crash of the cataracts or the impressive and dreadful tremor of the earthquake” (2011, 19).
Rizal’s celebration of Luna’s art is instructive. Notice the naturalization of a historical occurrence, as if the phenomenon has been
The concept of the Kantian sublime predominant in Rizal’s melodramatic staging animates the conclusion of the essay “The Sense of the Beautiful” in which the ancestors shed their tears on the child’s cradle “so that the sacred plant of liberty and progress may bloom” (1962, 32). Friedrich Schiller, author of the play William Tell which Rizal translated into Tagalog, once declared that one encounters and actualizes freedom/ autonomy through the creation of beauty as “living form” via the calibrated, nuanced play of instinct and reason(1952, 407-08). Rizal was thoroughly acquainted with this solution to the quandary of the artist grappling with the recalcitrant, refractory materials of quotidian existence.
Aesthetics mediates the ethico-political burden of Rizal’ s narrative craft. It is Intriguing how the image and voice of the Roman slave- gladiators acknowledging the glory of the Emperor (quoted earlier) recall Juan Luna’s masterpiece, El Spoliarium. The painting depicted in sombre tone the gory gladiators’ corpses, their sacrificial tribute, dragged from the arena of combat in the Roman amphitheater. Rizal celebrated Luna’s evocation of the carnage as a sign of resurrection—a prelude to the planned fireworks of Simoun/Ibarra, this double agent of a repressed community, passionately envisaging the apocalyptic triumph of his cohort of avengers.
In Luna’s painting, according to Rizal, “can be heard the tumult of the multitude, the shouting of the slaves, the metalllic creaking of the armor of the corpses, the sobs of the bereaved, the murmurs of prayer, with such vigor and realism as one hears the din of thunder in the midst of the crash of the cataracts or the impressive and dreadful tremor of the earthquake” (2011, 19).
Rizal’s celebration of Luna’s art is instructive. Notice the naturalization of a historical occurrence, as if the phenomenon has been
17
providentially decreed, at the same time that nature functions as figural presentiment of what is bound to happen. It is Rizal’s diacritical gesture of temporalizing space and spatializing duration, collapsing the past into the present and future to generate the stage for the fulfillment of Sisa’s “vengeance.” It also posits the hypothesis that what appears as fate or destiny is nothing but a sociopolitical construction, a social practice or a wholly human contrivance open to alteration, reversal, change. The social order is mutable, contingent, subject to unpredictable transformations. The future is open for our choices and actions.
We then enter the realm of possibilities, of necessity converted to freedom, and the principle of self-determination as a guide to collective action, with the collaborative subalterns acting as rational-natural subjects and impassioned, mobilized communities. We behold the awakened nation-people forging at last their common destiny in mass insurgency.
The issue concerns the subtlety, depth, and sharpness of artistic rendition of the lives of the major protagonists and their doubles. Certainly, one can construe Simoun’s unconscionable scheme of killing government officials and innocent associates as one inspired by the European anarchist propaganda of the exemplary deed. Further, his scheme of rescuing Maria Clara from the nunnery replicates certain motifs and themes in canonical European texts.
But the inventory of the horrendous torment and anguish endured by Elias’ family, the suffering of Sisa and her children, and the intolerable ordeals that afflicted Cabesang Tales, Tandang Selo, and Juli (reminiscent of Rizal’s family evicted from Calamba), as well as Capitan Pablo and his band of rebels (see the Noli, Chapter 46, “The Fugitives”), would be more than enough carnage to surpass the hardships of the Parisian workers singled out by Anderson.
Actually, the issue is more embroiled and vexing. In my view, it is not a question of comparing the veracity or scale of one kind of misery against another. Rather, it is a question of selecting which scenes of conflict and struggle can synthesize the distinctive gravity and resonance of an entire people’s experience of centuries of colonial domination and the durable intensity of their resistance to it. Can art simply be reduced to a narcotic coaxing the audience to submission, or apathy? Can postmodern cynical reason be recruited to make us indifferent to this classic dilemma? Can the deconstructionists be summoned to arbitrate the merits of the case between a voluntarist artist serving the cause of the oppressed masses and a determinist critic enforcing reactionary norms and regulations for the sake of upholding high standards and refined tastes? We can imagine various scenarios and hypothesize multiple
We then enter the realm of possibilities, of necessity converted to freedom, and the principle of self-determination as a guide to collective action, with the collaborative subalterns acting as rational-natural subjects and impassioned, mobilized communities. We behold the awakened nation-people forging at last their common destiny in mass insurgency.
The issue concerns the subtlety, depth, and sharpness of artistic rendition of the lives of the major protagonists and their doubles. Certainly, one can construe Simoun’s unconscionable scheme of killing government officials and innocent associates as one inspired by the European anarchist propaganda of the exemplary deed. Further, his scheme of rescuing Maria Clara from the nunnery replicates certain motifs and themes in canonical European texts.
But the inventory of the horrendous torment and anguish endured by Elias’ family, the suffering of Sisa and her children, and the intolerable ordeals that afflicted Cabesang Tales, Tandang Selo, and Juli (reminiscent of Rizal’s family evicted from Calamba), as well as Capitan Pablo and his band of rebels (see the Noli, Chapter 46, “The Fugitives”), would be more than enough carnage to surpass the hardships of the Parisian workers singled out by Anderson.
Actually, the issue is more embroiled and vexing. In my view, it is not a question of comparing the veracity or scale of one kind of misery against another. Rather, it is a question of selecting which scenes of conflict and struggle can synthesize the distinctive gravity and resonance of an entire people’s experience of centuries of colonial domination and the durable intensity of their resistance to it. Can art simply be reduced to a narcotic coaxing the audience to submission, or apathy? Can postmodern cynical reason be recruited to make us indifferent to this classic dilemma? Can the deconstructionists be summoned to arbitrate the merits of the case between a voluntarist artist serving the cause of the oppressed masses and a determinist critic enforcing reactionary norms and regulations for the sake of upholding high standards and refined tastes? We can imagine various scenarios and hypothesize multiple
18
endgames and warring consequences by way of dialectical sublation or Kierkegaardian repetition.
Anatomy of the Terrorizing Sublime
Notice has been made earlier regarding Rizal’s predilection for melodrama tempered with Rabelaisian farce. Whatever sophistic qualifications may be offered, I submit that aside from the poignant rendition of Sisa’s agony and the Tales’ family’s seemingly endless punishment (analogous to Elias’ family’s tribulations), Rizal’s artistic shrewdness may be discerned in such episodes as the slow torture of Tarsilo Alasigan in Chapter 58 of the Noli and the hideous plight of the prisoners in Chapter 38 of the Fili, among others.
At such moments in the Fili, the montage of horror is framed and distanced by an explicit cut in the narration. This can be quickly ascertained in a few instances. Take the episode where, after the report of the assassinated landgrabbers (Chapter 10), the narrator abruptly shifts to addressing his readers by dissolving the illusion: “Do not be alarmed, peaceful citizens of Calamba...” For another instance, consider the freezing of the camera-eye in Chapter 23 when Maria Clara is reported dead, stupefying Simoun, at which point the narrator interrupts to perform a pacifying invocation: “Sleep in peace, unhappy child of my unfortunate motherland....” These are just samples of the obvious defamiliarizing semiotic device of the narrative designed to reconcile on the imaginary plane painfully lived contradictions energizing the plots and characters of Rizal’s fiction (Balibar and Macherey 1996).
By themselves, spectacles of misery and human degradation do not by themselves trigger anger leading to sustained mass agitation and insurrection. In fact, as the historical precedents show, they often lead to the emergence of a populist demagogue whose authoritarian violence serves as catharsis for moral panic and mass hysteria. Were the proletarian viewers of Luna’s El Spoliarium, or the readers of Zola’s portrayals of brutalized workers, stirred up enough to demand immediate action? Can literary artifice serve as an effective tool to improve the victims’ wretched condition? Other contingencies and variables involving audience reception, their race/gender/class-defined dispositions, and attendant institutional constraints have to be taken into account. Needless to say, political propaganda like commercial advertisements can employ artistic means; but their effects are dependent on imponderable contingencies, so that intentions and motives are not always realized.
Nonetheless, one can venture the proposition that the aesthetic level of response cannot really be measured and judged apart from their ethico-political ramifications. We can pose the following questions: what
Anatomy of the Terrorizing Sublime
Notice has been made earlier regarding Rizal’s predilection for melodrama tempered with Rabelaisian farce. Whatever sophistic qualifications may be offered, I submit that aside from the poignant rendition of Sisa’s agony and the Tales’ family’s seemingly endless punishment (analogous to Elias’ family’s tribulations), Rizal’s artistic shrewdness may be discerned in such episodes as the slow torture of Tarsilo Alasigan in Chapter 58 of the Noli and the hideous plight of the prisoners in Chapter 38 of the Fili, among others.
At such moments in the Fili, the montage of horror is framed and distanced by an explicit cut in the narration. This can be quickly ascertained in a few instances. Take the episode where, after the report of the assassinated landgrabbers (Chapter 10), the narrator abruptly shifts to addressing his readers by dissolving the illusion: “Do not be alarmed, peaceful citizens of Calamba...” For another instance, consider the freezing of the camera-eye in Chapter 23 when Maria Clara is reported dead, stupefying Simoun, at which point the narrator interrupts to perform a pacifying invocation: “Sleep in peace, unhappy child of my unfortunate motherland....” These are just samples of the obvious defamiliarizing semiotic device of the narrative designed to reconcile on the imaginary plane painfully lived contradictions energizing the plots and characters of Rizal’s fiction (Balibar and Macherey 1996).
By themselves, spectacles of misery and human degradation do not by themselves trigger anger leading to sustained mass agitation and insurrection. In fact, as the historical precedents show, they often lead to the emergence of a populist demagogue whose authoritarian violence serves as catharsis for moral panic and mass hysteria. Were the proletarian viewers of Luna’s El Spoliarium, or the readers of Zola’s portrayals of brutalized workers, stirred up enough to demand immediate action? Can literary artifice serve as an effective tool to improve the victims’ wretched condition? Other contingencies and variables involving audience reception, their race/gender/class-defined dispositions, and attendant institutional constraints have to be taken into account. Needless to say, political propaganda like commercial advertisements can employ artistic means; but their effects are dependent on imponderable contingencies, so that intentions and motives are not always realized.
Nonetheless, one can venture the proposition that the aesthetic level of response cannot really be measured and judged apart from their ethico-political ramifications. We can pose the following questions: what
19
conceivable sequence of conduct can be inferred logically arising from such scenes as the encounter between the sanctimonious Dona Victorina and the feral Dona Consolacion in Chapter 48 of the Noli? Or what effect is intended to be produced by the last chapter of the Fili?
I have in mind specifically Padre Florentino’s impassioned appeal for the youth “who would generously shed their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much abomination” even while he condemns Simoun’s call for sacrifice, for blood, to guarantee their “rights to social life.” The priest’s appeal does not exactly block a sanguinary path to extremist purification.
One is disquieted, if not disconcerted, by the ambiguous resolution of the Fili. A sequel did not materialize with the author’s demise. The final chapter is charged with the purpose of satisfying readers’ expectations, but the scene is invested with contradictory ideological implications, just like the Noli’s closure. When an official representative of the government visits the convent of Santa Clara (where Maria Clara was confined) to speak to the abbess and meet all the nuns, we are suddenly confronted with this shocking spectacle, a cryptic intervention from the author’s buried past: “It is said that one of the these appeared with her habit soaking wet and torn to shreds; weeping, she asked for the man’s protection against the violence of hypocrisy, and revealed other horrors. It is said that she was very beautiful, that she had the loveliest and most expressive eyes that were ever seen (2004, 565)
Again, we confront those “expressive eyes” gesturing to the missing object! We have encountered this scopic insignia before, first underscored in the “Memoirs of a Student in Manila by P. Jacinto,” where the transgressive coupling of love and death, of desire and its perversions, configured the first twenty years of Rizal’s life (for the interplay of eros and thanatos, see San Juan 2011, 37-50). The surveillance of a patriarchalnomos continues in the world of make-believe. And this is where Rizal’s reflections on women’s surbordination, the sexual division of labor, and gender inequity, becomes fraught with radical, ultimately subversive political consequences when translated into either spontaneous or organized mass action--filibusterismo on the rampage.
Signposts of Deliverance
Rizal’s heroic achievement is generally identified with the ideas and actions enacted in the two novels. For schools and official functions, the “Ultimo Adios” serves as a precis of the hero’s credo. One can assert here that, by a formidable consensus, Rizal’s novels have been judged as the foundational scripture of the republic, a national allegory of our collective experience as colonized object-become-emancipated subject. In effect,
I have in mind specifically Padre Florentino’s impassioned appeal for the youth “who would generously shed their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much abomination” even while he condemns Simoun’s call for sacrifice, for blood, to guarantee their “rights to social life.” The priest’s appeal does not exactly block a sanguinary path to extremist purification.
One is disquieted, if not disconcerted, by the ambiguous resolution of the Fili. A sequel did not materialize with the author’s demise. The final chapter is charged with the purpose of satisfying readers’ expectations, but the scene is invested with contradictory ideological implications, just like the Noli’s closure. When an official representative of the government visits the convent of Santa Clara (where Maria Clara was confined) to speak to the abbess and meet all the nuns, we are suddenly confronted with this shocking spectacle, a cryptic intervention from the author’s buried past: “It is said that one of the these appeared with her habit soaking wet and torn to shreds; weeping, she asked for the man’s protection against the violence of hypocrisy, and revealed other horrors. It is said that she was very beautiful, that she had the loveliest and most expressive eyes that were ever seen (2004, 565)
Again, we confront those “expressive eyes” gesturing to the missing object! We have encountered this scopic insignia before, first underscored in the “Memoirs of a Student in Manila by P. Jacinto,” where the transgressive coupling of love and death, of desire and its perversions, configured the first twenty years of Rizal’s life (for the interplay of eros and thanatos, see San Juan 2011, 37-50). The surveillance of a patriarchalnomos continues in the world of make-believe. And this is where Rizal’s reflections on women’s surbordination, the sexual division of labor, and gender inequity, becomes fraught with radical, ultimately subversive political consequences when translated into either spontaneous or organized mass action--filibusterismo on the rampage.
Signposts of Deliverance
Rizal’s heroic achievement is generally identified with the ideas and actions enacted in the two novels. For schools and official functions, the “Ultimo Adios” serves as a precis of the hero’s credo. One can assert here that, by a formidable consensus, Rizal’s novels have been judged as the foundational scripture of the republic, a national allegory of our collective experience as colonized object-become-emancipated subject. In effect,
20
they constitute the epic of our ethnogenesis, of becoming ideally a nation- state with popular-democratic sovereignty. They operate as the paradigmatic exemplum of our acquiring a historic national identity. And by “national allegory,” we allude to Frederic Jameson’s thesis on the peculiarity of political-didactic romances fashioned in colonial terrain. He reflects on this topic: “Third-world texts, even those which are seemingly private and invested with a properly libidinal dynamc, necessarily project a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society” (2000, 320). Embattled up to now, even beleaguered, given the insidious neocolonial bondage we continue to suffer.
In Rizal’s unconventional allegory, the hero’s situation is cast as a microcosm of the body politic, the historic predicament of the majority writ large. As synedochic figure, Ibarra’s plan to improve schooling (inflected later in the students’ demand for a Spanish academy) fuses private and public spheres. Both attempts are foiled. The conflicting sides mirror the asymmetry between lord and slave (in Hegel’s famous tableau). But through agonizing labor and initiative, the slave acquires self- consciousness, elicits recognition, and liberates herself as an emblem of transcending the syndrome of contradictions. The pathos of awakening-- the recognition of the totality of the situation after the reversal and catharsis of repressed emotions--initiates us to enter, at last, the threshold of national-popular revolution.
Argued from another vantage-point, we engage with the disruption of assemblages, compromises, and temporizing unions. Diremptions prevail over fusion and linkages. What the novels strive to convey, among other aims, is the break-up of the matrimonial market and its cognate family structure, the basis of masculine domination. Sisa’s plight and Elias’ genealogy condense this trajectory. Its aftermath coincides with the swift disintegration of the decaying tributary structure and its supernaturalist legitimizations. Sexual difference comes to the foreground in Rizal’s counter-metanarrative and exfoliates into pathetic submission, serial tragedies, or into the fury of nihilist rage (for an argument against gender dimorphism, see Butler 2000, 143-79).
In the Beginning: Exchange of Women
In this context, Pierre Bourdieu’s insight into the role of women in the economy of reifying commodity exchange yields heuristic pertinence: “The principle of the inferiority and exclusion of women, which the mythico-ritual system ratifies and amplifies, to the point of making it the principle of the division of the whole universe, is nothing other than the fundamental dissymmetry, that of subject and object, agent and
In Rizal’s unconventional allegory, the hero’s situation is cast as a microcosm of the body politic, the historic predicament of the majority writ large. As synedochic figure, Ibarra’s plan to improve schooling (inflected later in the students’ demand for a Spanish academy) fuses private and public spheres. Both attempts are foiled. The conflicting sides mirror the asymmetry between lord and slave (in Hegel’s famous tableau). But through agonizing labor and initiative, the slave acquires self- consciousness, elicits recognition, and liberates herself as an emblem of transcending the syndrome of contradictions. The pathos of awakening-- the recognition of the totality of the situation after the reversal and catharsis of repressed emotions--initiates us to enter, at last, the threshold of national-popular revolution.
Argued from another vantage-point, we engage with the disruption of assemblages, compromises, and temporizing unions. Diremptions prevail over fusion and linkages. What the novels strive to convey, among other aims, is the break-up of the matrimonial market and its cognate family structure, the basis of masculine domination. Sisa’s plight and Elias’ genealogy condense this trajectory. Its aftermath coincides with the swift disintegration of the decaying tributary structure and its supernaturalist legitimizations. Sexual difference comes to the foreground in Rizal’s counter-metanarrative and exfoliates into pathetic submission, serial tragedies, or into the fury of nihilist rage (for an argument against gender dimorphism, see Butler 2000, 143-79).
In the Beginning: Exchange of Women
In this context, Pierre Bourdieu’s insight into the role of women in the economy of reifying commodity exchange yields heuristic pertinence: “The principle of the inferiority and exclusion of women, which the mythico-ritual system ratifies and amplifies, to the point of making it the principle of the division of the whole universe, is nothing other than the fundamental dissymmetry, that of subject and object, agent and
21
instrument, which is set up between men and women in the domain of symbolic exchanges, the relations of production and reproduction of symbolic capital, the central device of which is the matrimonial market, and which are the foundation of the whole social order—women can only appear there as objects, or, more precisely, as symbols whose meaning is contributed outside of them and whose function is to contribute to the perpetuation or expansion of the symbolic capital held by men” (2001, 42-43).
Responding to this crucial question cannot be shirked: what can abolish this market and the salient role of symbolic capital in organizing social relations? Victimized women’s rebellion and the sympathy or solidarity it elicits, is one answer. Rizal, of course, responded within the given opportunities of his time and place, cognizant of the hierarchies of power and knowledge limiting his agency, resources, and reflexivity.
Changes in the mode of production are bound, sooner or later, to modify the reproduction of the whole power-arrangement, including the distribution of wealth and symbolic capital. With the changes in the family structure and domestic/household set-up, plus opportunities for remunerative work outside, women gained more autonomy. They were gradually freed from strict parental control and the burden of rigid traditional mores regulating kin-network (Goody 1998, 79-95).
From this point of view, we can appreciate the shattering of masculine domination in the wreckage of Ibarra’s courtship of Maria Clara, the sundering of families and murder of daughters (Sisa’s case), the farcical rigmarole of Dona Victorina and Dona Consolacion, estrangement among relatives and friends, as well as the interruption of Paulita Gomez’s wedding and the heart-breaking separation of Elias and Salome. Such reversals transpired in the process of disclosing the truth behind appearances, alongside satiric lampoons, sardonic interior monologues, and tragicomic interludes.
Let us rehearse Rizal’s attitudes and sentiments touched on earlier. The curse of patriarchal ascendancy is over. It has been exorcised, and a new epoch of indeterminacy and dicey possibilities glimmer in the horizon. The dice have been cast. Shall we greet the new age of hope convulsed in its bloody birth-pangs? Whatever the reader’s response, this advent of a new epoch is welcomed by the hero on the eve of his execution:
Mis suenos cuando apenas muchacho adolescente, Mis suenos cuando joven, ya lleno de vigor,
Fueron el verte un dia, joya del Mar de Oriente, Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
Sin ceno, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor,...
Responding to this crucial question cannot be shirked: what can abolish this market and the salient role of symbolic capital in organizing social relations? Victimized women’s rebellion and the sympathy or solidarity it elicits, is one answer. Rizal, of course, responded within the given opportunities of his time and place, cognizant of the hierarchies of power and knowledge limiting his agency, resources, and reflexivity.
Changes in the mode of production are bound, sooner or later, to modify the reproduction of the whole power-arrangement, including the distribution of wealth and symbolic capital. With the changes in the family structure and domestic/household set-up, plus opportunities for remunerative work outside, women gained more autonomy. They were gradually freed from strict parental control and the burden of rigid traditional mores regulating kin-network (Goody 1998, 79-95).
From this point of view, we can appreciate the shattering of masculine domination in the wreckage of Ibarra’s courtship of Maria Clara, the sundering of families and murder of daughters (Sisa’s case), the farcical rigmarole of Dona Victorina and Dona Consolacion, estrangement among relatives and friends, as well as the interruption of Paulita Gomez’s wedding and the heart-breaking separation of Elias and Salome. Such reversals transpired in the process of disclosing the truth behind appearances, alongside satiric lampoons, sardonic interior monologues, and tragicomic interludes.
Let us rehearse Rizal’s attitudes and sentiments touched on earlier. The curse of patriarchal ascendancy is over. It has been exorcised, and a new epoch of indeterminacy and dicey possibilities glimmer in the horizon. The dice have been cast. Shall we greet the new age of hope convulsed in its bloody birth-pangs? Whatever the reader’s response, this advent of a new epoch is welcomed by the hero on the eve of his execution:
Mis suenos cuando apenas muchacho adolescente, Mis suenos cuando joven, ya lleno de vigor,
Fueron el verte un dia, joya del Mar de Oriente, Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
Sin ceno, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor,...
22
Mi patria idolatrada! Dolor de mis dolores!
Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adios!
Ahi te dejo todo; mis padres, mis amores,
Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores, Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios!
My dreams, while yet merely a child, or when nearing maturity, My dreams, when a youth full of vigor at length I became,
Were to see Thee one happier day, O jewel of the orient sea, Thine ebon eyes dried of their tears, thine uplifted brow clear and
free
From the frowns and the furrows, the stains and the stigma of
shame....
My idolized motherland, whose grieving makes me grieve, Dearest Filipinas, hear my last farewell again!
I now leave all to thee, my parents, my loved ones I leave.
I go where there are no slaves, a brute’s lash to receive; Where faith does not kill, and where it is God who doth reign.
(Tr. Frank Laubach; Palma 1949, 321-22)
Frame of Intelligibility
Our meditation on the sexual politics of Rizal’s allegory is nearly over for now. We have concentrated on the representation and elaboration of his ideas on “the woman question,” broadly construed, in his fiction and in various speech-acts. It will take another treatise to explore further the transformation of Rizal’s artistic project via complex dialectical mediations to a fully fleshed ethico-political program of action. We have witnessed its initial outline in the constitution of the Liga Filipina. We can also glimpse the concept of the “general will” adumbrated in “The Rights of Man,” “By- laws of the Association of Dapitan Farmers,” and the proposal for the development of north Borneo by Rizal’s family and relatives.
The principles enunciated in the documents of the French Revolution can be extrapolated from Rizal’s manifestoes or public statements drawn up before his trial and execution, such as “An Address to the Spanish Nation” and “Data for my Defense” (2011, 309-91). Those discourses contain both negative/critical insights combined with positive/ utopian projections and their corresponding affects. They are impregnated with a totalizing vision of the whole imperial system--Spain/Europe vis-a- vis Philippines/Asia--where History appears as pivotal events of confrontation between lords/bondsmen, colonized and colonizers.
Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adios!
Ahi te dejo todo; mis padres, mis amores,
Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores, Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios!
My dreams, while yet merely a child, or when nearing maturity, My dreams, when a youth full of vigor at length I became,
Were to see Thee one happier day, O jewel of the orient sea, Thine ebon eyes dried of their tears, thine uplifted brow clear and
free
From the frowns and the furrows, the stains and the stigma of
shame....
My idolized motherland, whose grieving makes me grieve, Dearest Filipinas, hear my last farewell again!
I now leave all to thee, my parents, my loved ones I leave.
I go where there are no slaves, a brute’s lash to receive; Where faith does not kill, and where it is God who doth reign.
(Tr. Frank Laubach; Palma 1949, 321-22)
Frame of Intelligibility
Our meditation on the sexual politics of Rizal’s allegory is nearly over for now. We have concentrated on the representation and elaboration of his ideas on “the woman question,” broadly construed, in his fiction and in various speech-acts. It will take another treatise to explore further the transformation of Rizal’s artistic project via complex dialectical mediations to a fully fleshed ethico-political program of action. We have witnessed its initial outline in the constitution of the Liga Filipina. We can also glimpse the concept of the “general will” adumbrated in “The Rights of Man,” “By- laws of the Association of Dapitan Farmers,” and the proposal for the development of north Borneo by Rizal’s family and relatives.
The principles enunciated in the documents of the French Revolution can be extrapolated from Rizal’s manifestoes or public statements drawn up before his trial and execution, such as “An Address to the Spanish Nation” and “Data for my Defense” (2011, 309-91). Those discourses contain both negative/critical insights combined with positive/ utopian projections and their corresponding affects. They are impregnated with a totalizing vision of the whole imperial system--Spain/Europe vis-a- vis Philippines/Asia--where History appears as pivotal events of confrontation between lords/bondsmen, colonized and colonizers.
23
MOMENT OF DECISION
(Kairos /Jezt-zeit /Now-time)
Elias’s Sacrifice / Cabesang Tales-Matanglawin
(Kairos /Jezt-zeit /Now-time)
Elias’s Sacrifice / Cabesang Tales-Matanglawin
HERITAGE <—————————— Padre Florentino (ocean)
Ibarra’s Father (lake) Simoun’s Jewelry
SISA
Quotidian time suspended/crossing borders
(Basilio/Isagani at Cross-Road: Retrieval) (Repetition / Temporalization: Ibarra/Simoun
Ibarra’s Father (lake) Simoun’s Jewelry
SISA
Quotidian time suspended/crossing borders
(Basilio/Isagani at Cross-Road: Retrieval) (Repetition / Temporalization: Ibarra/Simoun
———————->
DESTINY
Salome on the move Tasio’s Hierogyphics
Telos of Simoun’s Quest
Salome on the move Tasio’s Hierogyphics
Telos of Simoun’s Quest
ANOMIE /LETHARGY <——————
——————------>
BARBARISM
Padre Salvi Padre Camorra
Alferez Dona Consolacion Padre Damaso
Padre Salvi Padre Camorra
Alferez Dona Consolacion Padre Damaso
Capitan Tiago
Senor Pasta Don Custodio
Senor Pasta Don Custodio
ALIENATED TIME—EMPIRE’S DURATION
Ben-Zayb Placido Penitente
Dona Victorina Don Tiburcio
Quiroga Gobernador-General ____________________________________________________________________________________
Schematic Outline of Thematic/Allegorical Network in Rizal’s Novels
We can assert that those events are also moments of decision in which heritage (the past), including its barbarism and lethargy, are dialectically converted by agents into destiny via group praxis. We offer the following semiotic diagram spelling out agencies and other thematic strands and their interweaving in the novels to supplement an earlier schematic tabulation found in Rizal in Our Time (2011, 94):
[PLACE DIAGRAM AFTER THIS PARAGRAPH]
Dona Victorina Don Tiburcio
Quiroga Gobernador-General ____________________________________________________________________________________
Schematic Outline of Thematic/Allegorical Network in Rizal’s Novels
We can assert that those events are also moments of decision in which heritage (the past), including its barbarism and lethargy, are dialectically converted by agents into destiny via group praxis. We offer the following semiotic diagram spelling out agencies and other thematic strands and their interweaving in the novels to supplement an earlier schematic tabulation found in Rizal in Our Time (2011, 94):
[PLACE DIAGRAM AFTER THIS PARAGRAPH]
24
Toward.a Radical Architectonic
Suffice it for this occasion to suggest the direction for a future critical negative/positive hermeneutics of Rizal’s life-work to discover hitherto unexamined aspects. Almost all his biographers concur that Rizal’s self-formation diverged from the usual pattern of a linear evolution due to the impact of sociohistorical circumstances. The planned course of his studies was interrupted in 1882, then in 1888, followed by the Depitan exile in 1892-1896. The itinerary of his thought unfolded in ironic or paradoxical ways. Sometimes Rizal argued for revolutionary change only to back-track with the usual qualifications about means and methods. But when faced with extreme urgent situations, Rizal committed himself to dissidence, remonstrance, protest, intransigent resistance.
The vicissitudes of Rizal’s speculative adventure, its “structure of feeling” (to use Raymond Williams’ rubric), may be tracked in his narratives. Adopting the genre of gothic melodrama popular in Europe, Rizal reworked the reversal of fortunes (including peripeteia and anagnorisis) caused by institutions into naturalistic scenes where the charismatic or supra-empirical tendencies predominate, Scrutinize, for instance, the chapters portraying Mr. Leeds’s Imuthis, the mummified Egyptian talking-head; the ghostly phantom on the convent roof; crocodiles in the lake; the philosopher Tasio’s uncanny intuitions; Dona Jeronima’s escapades, and other seemingly bizarre phenomena. They all problematize the intrusion of forces beyond one individual’s control, suggesting the pressure of structures and received group mores or folkways--the power of Necessity circumscribing people’s will and choices, the ruses of Spirit (in Hegel’s philosophy) to determine individual/group fates immanent in the antagonism between the advancing forces of production and the inherited social relations that inhibit progress.
With the onset of global commerce, the exchange of commodities and ideas in the second half of the 19th-century, a new landsape of urban speed and technological mobility began to erode the inertia of old rules and habits. Anomie and alienation began to unsettle the normal modes of
Suffice it for this occasion to suggest the direction for a future critical negative/positive hermeneutics of Rizal’s life-work to discover hitherto unexamined aspects. Almost all his biographers concur that Rizal’s self-formation diverged from the usual pattern of a linear evolution due to the impact of sociohistorical circumstances. The planned course of his studies was interrupted in 1882, then in 1888, followed by the Depitan exile in 1892-1896. The itinerary of his thought unfolded in ironic or paradoxical ways. Sometimes Rizal argued for revolutionary change only to back-track with the usual qualifications about means and methods. But when faced with extreme urgent situations, Rizal committed himself to dissidence, remonstrance, protest, intransigent resistance.
The vicissitudes of Rizal’s speculative adventure, its “structure of feeling” (to use Raymond Williams’ rubric), may be tracked in his narratives. Adopting the genre of gothic melodrama popular in Europe, Rizal reworked the reversal of fortunes (including peripeteia and anagnorisis) caused by institutions into naturalistic scenes where the charismatic or supra-empirical tendencies predominate, Scrutinize, for instance, the chapters portraying Mr. Leeds’s Imuthis, the mummified Egyptian talking-head; the ghostly phantom on the convent roof; crocodiles in the lake; the philosopher Tasio’s uncanny intuitions; Dona Jeronima’s escapades, and other seemingly bizarre phenomena. They all problematize the intrusion of forces beyond one individual’s control, suggesting the pressure of structures and received group mores or folkways--the power of Necessity circumscribing people’s will and choices, the ruses of Spirit (in Hegel’s philosophy) to determine individual/group fates immanent in the antagonism between the advancing forces of production and the inherited social relations that inhibit progress.
With the onset of global commerce, the exchange of commodities and ideas in the second half of the 19th-century, a new landsape of urban speed and technological mobility began to erode the inertia of old rules and habits. Anomie and alienation began to unsettle the normal modes of
25
perception and social behavior, opening gaps for intervention. Crisis actually presents us with the twin moments of danger and opportunities. Perspective is gained by people wrestling with these sudden unexpected turns, allowing the larger horizon of the social drama to surface. In the novels, the texture of the social landscape seems saturated by disappointments, miscarriage, delays, failures, aborted schemes, remorse, melancholia, flailing anger, fits of delirium.
The Sibyl of Cumae seems to be beckoning from the edge of the crossroad. Fate and capricious fortune are invoked, beseeched, and denounced. Tragic and comic affects blend in contrapuntal rhythm as when, for instance, we juxtapose the legend of Dona Jeronima with the painful trials of Maria Clara, Dona Victorina, Paulita Gomez, Juli, and other women. Sisa’s agony punctuates this lanscape with an abject experience impossible to categorize or normalize. In brief, the course of alienated existence in the colony was utterly precarious and the outcome of plans could not be fully extrapolated, hence the accidents, the exigencies, the dizzying variety of contingencies and constraints that defy the conjectures about the future offered by any number of SIbylline oracles awaiting at the wings.
Regrounding Our Agenda
We have now traversed the zone of dead quotidian space/time, coming from the Empire’s petrified duration, to the Now-time: the settling of accounts. Sisa’s torment precipitates kairos, the ripeness of all that King Lear proclaimed. By existentialist retrieval/repetition, the gaps and silences of the staus quo have been exposed. The sacrifices of Elias, Cabesang Tales, Capitan Pablo, and Sisa have been staged and witnessed by all. So now we can understand how Rizal’s preoccupation with individual lives (veridical as well as fictional) was dictated by the sheer pressure of turbulent occurrences. The imperative of family-kinship solidarity and the claim of Indio-tempered honor compelled him to move away from the customary analysis of the ego-centered psychic dimension to the more demanding ethico-political inquiry into purposes, ideals, and principles lived by communities and regions. Acquisitive individualism and instrumentalist beliefs have to be re-evaluated against the wider socio- political background, together with the ideological apparatus of Empire that legitimized extraction of surplus-value/profit, as well as feudal tribute (rent, exorbitant landlord credit), from the natives based on church/state- sanctioned inequities of race, gender, religion, and class.
The memorable dialogues of Ibarra-Elias and Simoun-Basilio, among other exchanges, illustrate Rizal’s grasp of the unity of opposites, the role of contradictions, in all social processes. Of prime importance is the dialectical reflections of the phliosopher Tasio who appied the logic of negation on all experience, thus counseling Ibarra that failure always
The Sibyl of Cumae seems to be beckoning from the edge of the crossroad. Fate and capricious fortune are invoked, beseeched, and denounced. Tragic and comic affects blend in contrapuntal rhythm as when, for instance, we juxtapose the legend of Dona Jeronima with the painful trials of Maria Clara, Dona Victorina, Paulita Gomez, Juli, and other women. Sisa’s agony punctuates this lanscape with an abject experience impossible to categorize or normalize. In brief, the course of alienated existence in the colony was utterly precarious and the outcome of plans could not be fully extrapolated, hence the accidents, the exigencies, the dizzying variety of contingencies and constraints that defy the conjectures about the future offered by any number of SIbylline oracles awaiting at the wings.
Regrounding Our Agenda
We have now traversed the zone of dead quotidian space/time, coming from the Empire’s petrified duration, to the Now-time: the settling of accounts. Sisa’s torment precipitates kairos, the ripeness of all that King Lear proclaimed. By existentialist retrieval/repetition, the gaps and silences of the staus quo have been exposed. The sacrifices of Elias, Cabesang Tales, Capitan Pablo, and Sisa have been staged and witnessed by all. So now we can understand how Rizal’s preoccupation with individual lives (veridical as well as fictional) was dictated by the sheer pressure of turbulent occurrences. The imperative of family-kinship solidarity and the claim of Indio-tempered honor compelled him to move away from the customary analysis of the ego-centered psychic dimension to the more demanding ethico-political inquiry into purposes, ideals, and principles lived by communities and regions. Acquisitive individualism and instrumentalist beliefs have to be re-evaluated against the wider socio- political background, together with the ideological apparatus of Empire that legitimized extraction of surplus-value/profit, as well as feudal tribute (rent, exorbitant landlord credit), from the natives based on church/state- sanctioned inequities of race, gender, religion, and class.
The memorable dialogues of Ibarra-Elias and Simoun-Basilio, among other exchanges, illustrate Rizal’s grasp of the unity of opposites, the role of contradictions, in all social processes. Of prime importance is the dialectical reflections of the phliosopher Tasio who appied the logic of negation on all experience, thus counseling Ibarra that failure always
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yields a measure of success: “...Lay the first stone, sow; after the storm is unleashed, some grain of wheat will perhaps germinate, survive the catastrophe, save from destruction the species which would later serve as seed for the sons of the dead sower” 2004, 231).
Unlike the either/or stance of his townmates, Tasio’s mediation seeks to resolve antinomies, aporias, and the one-dimensional thinking validated by church/state metaphysics. As antithesis, we note the personalistic indecisiveness and temporizing abstractions found in the thoughts and deeds of the youthful Basilio, Isagani and other characters (including Don Custodio, Padre Fernandez, the opportunist lawyer Pasta, and many more) which are tested and proved inadequate, forcing one to assume more distancing, suspicious, critical, self-estranging, interrogative stances.
One standpoint for further examination is the equivocal role of Simoun, Ibarra’s double or shadow (Elias functioned in the Noli as Simoun’s avatar). His self-righteous judgment of defending the oppressed is undercut by his obsession with a frozen past, a petrified ideal (Maria Clara’s purity now compromised in the convent). This turn of events seems predestined by the middle of the narrative. In demonstrating the futile idealism of Simoun’s plan (arguably a cynical inversion of Ibarra’s pedagogical meliorism) to stir up mass unrest and chaos for the sake of salvaging his beloved--a surrogate for the dishonored father whose corpse iwas ordered disinterred and thrown to the lake, Rizal’s twin narratives evince the transition from an aesthetic exercise to an ethico-political engagement, a movement from the anomie/barbarism of Capitan Tiago and the friars to the stage of an existential leap to judgment, passing through Sisa’s and Elias’ sacrifices, the most pregnant gifts to patria.
Subterranean Mobilizations
We have been prepared for such a transition. Even before his execution, Rizal always affirmed his convictions about freedom and rights and his obligation to perform his duty to patria regardless of costs. This testifies to the inherently contradictory mechanism of the ilustrado sensibility and intellect in dealing with the crisis. The solitude of Simoun and Padre Florentino’s piety converge at the end, not without generating contradictory, extravagant impulses--other lives are on the move outside the remote retreat, advancing toward the fortified metropolis.
At this conjuncture, the emergence of a counterhegemonic bloc is not far from the scene. The ilustrado’s seemingly irresolvable predicament can only be remedied by class suicide, fulfilling its tendency to dissolve its vacillating status into that of a nomad operating as an integral component of the proletarian-peasant, united-front formation so long held dormant in
Unlike the either/or stance of his townmates, Tasio’s mediation seeks to resolve antinomies, aporias, and the one-dimensional thinking validated by church/state metaphysics. As antithesis, we note the personalistic indecisiveness and temporizing abstractions found in the thoughts and deeds of the youthful Basilio, Isagani and other characters (including Don Custodio, Padre Fernandez, the opportunist lawyer Pasta, and many more) which are tested and proved inadequate, forcing one to assume more distancing, suspicious, critical, self-estranging, interrogative stances.
One standpoint for further examination is the equivocal role of Simoun, Ibarra’s double or shadow (Elias functioned in the Noli as Simoun’s avatar). His self-righteous judgment of defending the oppressed is undercut by his obsession with a frozen past, a petrified ideal (Maria Clara’s purity now compromised in the convent). This turn of events seems predestined by the middle of the narrative. In demonstrating the futile idealism of Simoun’s plan (arguably a cynical inversion of Ibarra’s pedagogical meliorism) to stir up mass unrest and chaos for the sake of salvaging his beloved--a surrogate for the dishonored father whose corpse iwas ordered disinterred and thrown to the lake, Rizal’s twin narratives evince the transition from an aesthetic exercise to an ethico-political engagement, a movement from the anomie/barbarism of Capitan Tiago and the friars to the stage of an existential leap to judgment, passing through Sisa’s and Elias’ sacrifices, the most pregnant gifts to patria.
Subterranean Mobilizations
We have been prepared for such a transition. Even before his execution, Rizal always affirmed his convictions about freedom and rights and his obligation to perform his duty to patria regardless of costs. This testifies to the inherently contradictory mechanism of the ilustrado sensibility and intellect in dealing with the crisis. The solitude of Simoun and Padre Florentino’s piety converge at the end, not without generating contradictory, extravagant impulses--other lives are on the move outside the remote retreat, advancing toward the fortified metropolis.
At this conjuncture, the emergence of a counterhegemonic bloc is not far from the scene. The ilustrado’s seemingly irresolvable predicament can only be remedied by class suicide, fulfilling its tendency to dissolve its vacillating status into that of a nomad operating as an integral component of the proletarian-peasant, united-front formation so long held dormant in
27
the process of slow germination. With Elias’ death and the tell-tale absence of Isagani and Basilio (youth as hope of the motherland), as well as the vigil of Cabesang Tales and other insurgents surrounding Intramuros, we are left suspended in that pregnant interregnum occupied
by Sisa as synoptic emblem (see the semiotic diagram in a previous page) before the quiet smuggling of “Ultimo Adios” from Fort Santiago and the tumutuous cry of Balintawak--a passage of rebirth and redemption for the subjugated multitude.
We arrive at this temporary station of our journey of interpreting and understanding Rizal’s achievement. We have compressed all the issues of gender, class and nation into the metaphor of “Sisa’s vengeance.” This may now be conceived as a symbolic labor of negation and secular transubstantiation, converting the people’s blood into the wine of redemption. The process of narrativizing routine time, everyday life, into the twists of the plot (modeled on the quest, ordeal, mission, etc.) transforms abstract theory into concrete praxis. In this context, the couple Simoun/Elias incarnates all the victims of patriarchal, frailocratic power. Meanwhile, Padre Florentino mourns over the dying Simoun confessing his real identity, The good priest implores the Christian God with His juridical wisdom to provide the weapon of retribution. He appeals to this metaphysical providence to rescue someday the treasures that he consigns to nature’s oceanic womb.
Padre Florentino’s “ultima razon” for getting rid of gold/money/ commodities may be Rizal’s paramount message overriding others. The die is cast. This gesture of sacrificing merchant capital, labor/wealth stolen from the masses, is a promise of compensation for the fidellity, patience and trust of those praying for the last day of judgment—in this case, for an imaginary resolution of real-life contradictions, which is art’s socially redeeming vocation. The destruction of Simoun’s treasure (the sweat and blood of human labor turned to waste) reawakens Sisa’s muffled cry of grief and protest.
Wanting to reconstitute the lost aura of her home and children, “Sisa’s vengeance” functions as the trope of that confluence of all the energies desiring change that were blocked, sublimated, or repressed. It heralds the emergence of a popular counterhegemonic agency designed to carry out to the end the program of anticolonial, national-democratic liberation. On the whole, Rizal’s narrative of mayhem, withdrawal,
by Sisa as synoptic emblem (see the semiotic diagram in a previous page) before the quiet smuggling of “Ultimo Adios” from Fort Santiago and the tumutuous cry of Balintawak--a passage of rebirth and redemption for the subjugated multitude.
We arrive at this temporary station of our journey of interpreting and understanding Rizal’s achievement. We have compressed all the issues of gender, class and nation into the metaphor of “Sisa’s vengeance.” This may now be conceived as a symbolic labor of negation and secular transubstantiation, converting the people’s blood into the wine of redemption. The process of narrativizing routine time, everyday life, into the twists of the plot (modeled on the quest, ordeal, mission, etc.) transforms abstract theory into concrete praxis. In this context, the couple Simoun/Elias incarnates all the victims of patriarchal, frailocratic power. Meanwhile, Padre Florentino mourns over the dying Simoun confessing his real identity, The good priest implores the Christian God with His juridical wisdom to provide the weapon of retribution. He appeals to this metaphysical providence to rescue someday the treasures that he consigns to nature’s oceanic womb.
Padre Florentino’s “ultima razon” for getting rid of gold/money/ commodities may be Rizal’s paramount message overriding others. The die is cast. This gesture of sacrificing merchant capital, labor/wealth stolen from the masses, is a promise of compensation for the fidellity, patience and trust of those praying for the last day of judgment—in this case, for an imaginary resolution of real-life contradictions, which is art’s socially redeeming vocation. The destruction of Simoun’s treasure (the sweat and blood of human labor turned to waste) reawakens Sisa’s muffled cry of grief and protest.
Wanting to reconstitute the lost aura of her home and children, “Sisa’s vengeance” functions as the trope of that confluence of all the energies desiring change that were blocked, sublimated, or repressed. It heralds the emergence of a popular counterhegemonic agency designed to carry out to the end the program of anticolonial, national-democratic liberation. On the whole, Rizal’s narrative of mayhem, withdrawal,
28
defeats, arrests, torture, murder, and generalized chaos may permit the grassroots messiah, the bathala of the boondocks, to intervene in sabotaging and eventually terminating for good the hitherto tolerated, but now bloodied, barbaric, wasted march of imperial history.
Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora
Y al fin anuncia el dia, tras lobrego capuz;
Si grana necesitas para tenir tu aurora,
Vierte la sangre mia, derramala en buena hora Y dorela un reflejo de su naciente luz!
I die just when I see the dawn break,
Through the gloom of night, to herald the day; And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take Pour’d out at need for thy dear sake,
To dye with its crimson the waking ray.
(Craig 2010, 148) ###----------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An internationally renowned literary and cultural critic, E. SAN JUAN, Jr. is emeritus professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Ethnic Studies, University of Connecticut and Washington State University. He received his degrees from the University of the Philippines and Harvard University. He was previously a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University; and Fulbright Professor of American Studies, Leuven University, Belgium.
San Juan was recently professorial chair of Cultural Studies, Polytechnic University of the Philippines; and visiting professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines. His recent books include Balikbayang Sinta: An E.San Juan Reader (Ateneo UP); Carlos Bulosan: Revolutionary Filipino Writer in the
Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora
Y al fin anuncia el dia, tras lobrego capuz;
Si grana necesitas para tenir tu aurora,
Vierte la sangre mia, derramala en buena hora Y dorela un reflejo de su naciente luz!
I die just when I see the dawn break,
Through the gloom of night, to herald the day; And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take Pour’d out at need for thy dear sake,
To dye with its crimson the waking ray.
(Craig 2010, 148) ###----------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An internationally renowned literary and cultural critic, E. SAN JUAN, Jr. is emeritus professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Ethnic Studies, University of Connecticut and Washington State University. He received his degrees from the University of the Philippines and Harvard University. He was previously a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University; and Fulbright Professor of American Studies, Leuven University, Belgium.
San Juan was recently professorial chair of Cultural Studies, Polytechnic University of the Philippines; and visiting professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines. His recent books include Balikbayang Sinta: An E.San Juan Reader (Ateneo UP); Carlos Bulosan: Revolutionary Filipino Writer in the
29
United States (Peter Lang); Working Through the Contradictions (Bucknell UP); In the Wake of Terror (Lexington); U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave); Filipinas Everywhere (Sussex Academic Press); Learning from the Filipino Diaspora (University of Santo Tomas Press), Between Empire and Insurgency; and Kontra-Modernidad (both from University of the Philippines Press)..###
30
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USAPING PANGWIKA--diskurso ni E. San Juan, Jr.
INTERBENSIYON SA USAPIN NG PAMBANSANG WIKA (Panayam sa Ateneo University, March 12, 2008, sa okasyon ng paglulunsad ng librong BALIKBAYANG SINTA: AN E. SAN JUAN READER)
“Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay……” –JOSE RIZAL
by E. San Juan, Jr.
1.Sa kasalukuyang matinding sigalot sa bansa, anumang talakayan hinggil sa wika ay tiyak na magbubunsod sa isang away o maingay na pagtatalo. Kahawig nito ang usapin ng kababaihan. Laging matinik ang isyu ng pambansang wika, isang sintomas ng pinaglikom na mga sakit ng body politic. Tila ito isang mitsang magpapasabog sa pinakabuod na mga kontradiksiyong bumubuo sa istruktura ng lipunang siyang nakatanghal na larangan ng digmaan ng mga uri at iba’t ibang sektor.
2.Lalong masahol siguro kung sabihin kong nasa panig ako ng mga nagsususog sa isang pambansang wikang tinaguriang “Filipino.” Tiyak na tututol ang mga Sebuano, Ilokano, Ilonggo, mga alagad ng Taglish, o Ingles, o Filipino-Ingles. Ngunit hindi ito maiiwasan, kaya tuloy na tayong makipagbuno sa usaping ito upang mailinaw ang linya ng paghahati’t paglilinaw, at sa gayo’y makarating sa antas ng pagtutuos.
3.Saan mang lugar, ang usapin ng pambansang wika ay kumakatawan sa pagtatalo tungkol sa mga mahalagang usapin sa pulitika at ekonomya. Buti naman, hindi pa tayo nagpapatayan sa ngalan ng wika, tulad ng nangyayari sa India at iba pang bansa. Marahil, napapahinahon ang bawat isa kung Ingles, ang wika ng dating kolonisador, ang wika ng globalisasyon ngayon, ang ating gagamitin. Di ko lang tiyak kung maiging magkaunawaan ang lahat sapagkat ang pagsasalin o translation, kalimitan, ang siyang nagbubunga ng karagdagang gulo. Ngunit ang pagbaling sa Ingles ay pagsuko lamang sa dominasyon ng kapangyarihang global sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang hegemon, ang Estados Unidos. Ang makalulutas ng krisis, sa tingin ko, ay isang pakikisangkot sa nangyayaring labanang pampulitika at pang-ideolohya, laluna ang pakikibaka tungo sa tunay na kasarinlan at demokrasyang popular, sa gitna ng dominasyon ng mga mayayama’t makapangyarihang bansa sa Europa, Norte Amerika, Hapon, at iba pa.
4.Bagamat mula pa noong panahon ni Quezon hanggang sa ngayon, ang isyu ng “pambansang wika” ay naipaloob na sa Konstitusyon, bumangon ito muli na tila mga kaluluwang uhaw sa dugo. Maireresolba lang ang isyung ito kung may tunay na soberanya na tayo, at namamayani ang kapangyarihan ng nakararami, mga pesante’t manggagawa, at nabuwag na ang poder ng mga may-aring kakutsaba ng imperyalismo. Sa ngayon, walang kalutasan ito, sintomas ng bayang naghihirap, hanggang ang relasyong sosyal ay kontrolado ng naghaharing uri, laluna ng mga komprador at maylupang pabor sa Ingles, wikang may prestihiyo at kinagawiang wika sa pakikipag-ugnay sa kanilang mga patrong Amerikano, Hapon, Intsik at iba pa.
5. Sa halip na sipatin ang isyung ito sa kinagawiang empirical na lapit, tulad ng ginagamit ng mga postmodernistang iskolar, dapat ipataw ang isang materyalismo- istorikal na pananaw at ang diyalektikong paraan upang makalikha ng praktikang agenda na tutugon sa tanong kung ano ba ang wikang pambansang magsisilbing mabisang sandata sa mapagpalayang pakikipagsapalaran ng sambayanan.
6. Ang wika ay hindi isang bagay na may sariling halaga kundi bahagi ito ng kategorya ng kamalayang sosyal, isang kamalayang praktika—“practical consciousness,” ayon kay Marx—na gumaganap sa buhay bilang lakas ng produksiyon. Matutukoy lamang ito sa gitna ng isang partikular na mode of production sa isang determinadong pormasyonag sosyal. Hindi ito bukod sa pagtatagisang pang-ideolohiya. Kalahok ito sa pagbubuo ng integral state (konseptong galing kay Gramsci), tambalan ng lipunang sibil at lipunang pampulitika. Ang usapin ng wika ay di maihihiwalay sa yugto ng kasaysayan ng bayan, na laging komplikado at di-pantay ang pagsulong ng iba’t ibang bahagi---uneven and combined development. Samakatwid, sa ating sitwasyon, ang suliraning pang-wika ay di maihihiwalay sa programa tungo sa tunay na kasarinlan at kasaganaan, mula sa kasalukuyang neocolonial at naghihikahos na bayan.
7. Sa Pilipinas, ang lagay at papel na ginagampanan ng wika ay maipapaliwanag lamang sa pagsingit nito sa ugnayang panlipunan, sa kontradiksyon ng sumusulong na puwersa ng produksyon at namamayaning balangkas na pumipigil sa pagsulong ng buong lipunan. Ang katayuan ng wika ay nakabatay sa kasaysayan ng bansa, sa kolonyal at neokolonyal na dominasyon ng Kastila, Amerika at Hapon, at sa himagsik ng sambayanan laban sa pang-aapi. Ang mga katagang “nasyonal-popular” o pambansa-makamasa—na iminungkahi ni Gramsci—ang dapat ilapat sa nakararami na nag-aadhikang makapagpahayag ng kanilang pagkatao sa iba’t ibang paraan, tigib ng kontradiksiyon na bunga ng di-pantay at pinagtambal na pagsulong ng iba’t ibang sangkap ng kabuuang istruktura ng lipunan. Ang wika ay nakalubog sa daloy ng mga kontradiksiyon sa lipunan.
8. Kailangang idiin ang prinsipyo ng nasyonal-popular, pambansa-makamasa, ang bansa na binubuo’t pinapatnubayan ng masang walang pag-aari—mga manggagawa, magsasaka, at gitnang sangay (mga propesyonal, petiburgesyang uri, mga minorya). Kung hindi, ang bansa ay mabibigyan-kahulugan ng mga naghaharing uri, ang iilan na nag-mamay-ari, ang oligarkong tuta ng imperyalismo, mga ahente ng global finance-capital.
9. Ang bansang Pilipinas na may kasanrinlan at matipunong industriya ay isang proyektong di pa tapos, nagpapatuloy, laging iniimbento ngunit hindi sa anumang kondisyon. Ang pagiging Filipino ay isang proseso ng dekolonisasyon at demokratisasyong radikal, isang kaganapan na likha ng kolektibong pagpapasya, hindi indibidwal na kagustuhan. Ang proyektong ito ay hinuhubog at niyayari ng maraming lakas, ng minanang ugali at sari-saring idea at institusyon katutubo o hiram. Hindi ito nakatutok sa pagtatamo ng isang esensiya, kundi makikilatis ito bilang isang masalimuot na pagbubuklod ng dinamikong pakikisamang pampulitika at mga komitment. Ito’y isa ring estetikong kalakaran sa kontra-gahum na paglikhang makasining.
10. Sa loob lamang ng pangitaing ito, sa proyekto ng pagsisikap makamit ang tunay na pambansang kasarinlan at demokrasyang radikal makatuturang mahihimay ang problema ng pangangailangan ng wikang pambansa, isang wikang mabisang makapag-iisa sa masa at mga komunidad sa teritoryo ng Pilipinas, at makapagdudulot ng mabisang partisipasyon sa pagbuo ng isang gahum o lideratong moral-intelektwal ng masang manggagawa. Paano mayayari ang mapagpalayang gahum kung walang pagkakaisang kinakatawan ng/kumakatawan sa sariling wika ng komunikasyon at pag-iisip?
11. Ang layon natin ay hindi lamang kultural na identidad, o kasiyaang pang-kalinangan. Sa gitna ng komodipikasyon ng lahat, sa gitna ng laganap na konsumerismo at paghahari ng halagang-pamalit (exchange-value), ang reipikasyon at alyenasyon ng ugnayan ng mga tao ay siyang nagpapalabo sa usapin ng wika. Hindi malulutas ang mga tanong tungkol sa wika hanggang hindi nahaharap ang mistipikasyon ng pakikipagkapwa, na ngayo’y natatabingan at nalalambungan ng mga komoditi, bilihin, salapi, na tila siyang umuugit, nagpapagalaw, namamahala’t gumagabay sa lahat ng bagay. Ang mistipikasyong ito ay mawawala lamang kung mapapanaw ang paghahari ng global na kapital, ang patakaran na tubo/yaman muna bago kapakanan ng tao—na, sa ngayon, ay nagsasalita sa Ingles, ang wika ng kongkistador na pumalit sa mga Kastila.
12. Ang pagbuo’t pagpapayaman ng isang pambansang wika, Filipino, ay hindi nangangahulugan ng pagsasaisantabi o pagbabalewala sa ibang mga wikang ginagamit ng maraming komunidad. Ang pagpapalawig at pagsuporta sa mga wikang ito ay matutupad kung may basehan lamang: ang kasarinlan ng bansa batay sa pagpapalaya sa masa. Sa harap ng higanteng lakas ng kapitalismong global, maisusulong lamang ang proyektong nabanggit ko kung makikibaka tayo sa programa ng pagbabago tungo sa pamamayani, gahum, ng masang gumagawa. Ang wika ay maaaring maging mapagpalayang sandata kung ito’y binubuhay ng masa sa pang-araw-araw na kilos at gawa.
13. Ang wika ay isang larangan o arena ng tunggalian ng mga uri, ayon kay Mikhail Bakhtin. Naniniwala ako na ang usaping ito, kung ano talaga ang wikang pambansa, ay masasagot lamang sa loob ng proyektong pampulitika, tinimbang at sinipat sa isang materyalistiko-istorikal na pananaw. Ang wika ay praktipang panlipunan, isang produktibong lakas ng sambayanan. Nakapanahon ngang maintindihan natin ito ngayon kung ngayon ay naisasatinig sa anagramatikong islogan:
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PANITIKAN: LUGAR & PANAHON--ANO ANG DAPAT GAWIN? --E. San Juan, Jr.
I. PANITIKAN SA KASALUKUYANG PANAHON
Modernidad at Globalisasyon: Diyalektika ng Panahon at Lugar
Ni E. SAN JUAN, Jr. Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Nasaan tayo ngayon at kailan nangyayari ito? Tila kabalintunaan ang nangyayari ngayon.
Pagnilayin natin ang mga mungkahing sumusunod. Singkahulugan ng modernidad ang katwiran at pagkamakatao, sagisag ng pagsulong ng kabihas- nan. Sa malas, batay sa krisis sa Ukraine, Syria, patuloy na digmaan sa Af- ghanistan, Mindanao, at hidwaan tungkol sa China Sea, umuurong na tayo mula sa modernidad tungo sa barbaridad, mula globalisasyon tungo sa kumprontasy- on ng mga makasariling bansang nagpipilit ng kanilang natatanging etnisidad na namumukod sa iba. Kabaligtaran nga sa perspektiba ng rasyonal at makataong antas ng sagad-modernong milenyo sa mundo.
Ibungad natin ang problemang bumabagabag sa atin: Anong uri ng mod- ernidad ang taglay ng Pilipinas? Kaugnay nito, paano mapapalaya ang potensyal ng ordinaryong araw-araw na buhay ng bawat mamamayan sa epoka ng kapital- ismong pampinansiyal na laganap sa buong planeta?
Isang anekdotang may masusing pahiwatig ang ibabahagi ko muna. Ka- makailan, sa isang workshop ng mga manunulat sa TABOAN 2014 (pagtitipon ng mga manunulat sa Subic Free Port, Zambales) tungkol sa pagsasalin, naitanong ko sa panel: "Pare-pareho ba o magkakapantay-pantay ang lahat ng wika na mag- agamit sa pagsasalin sa kasalukuyan?" Di umano, isang inosenteng tanong. Tu- gon sa akin ng dalawang kasali roon: "Oo, pare-pareho, walang wikang nakahi- higit sa iba." Ibig sabihin, Ingles, Cebuano, Pranses, Intsik, Ruso, Aleman, lahat iyan ay magkakapantay-pantay...
Saan ba tayo nakatira? Anong petsa ba ngayon, saang lugar tayo nakatala- ga? Ano ang tunay at eksaktong posisyon natin?
SAN JUAN 1
Nakakalito nga. Tingnan ninyo: bagamat ang Subic ay isinauli na sa Filip- inas, patuloy pa rin ang paggamit noon ng Kano sa taun-taong Balikatan Exercis- es, pati Clark at iba pang dating base militar sa buong sangkapuluan. Lumubha pa nga dahil sa pag-iral ng Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) na pinirmahan nina Presidente Aquino at Washington. Dagdag sa Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) na saligan ng taunang Balikatan Exercises, ang EDCA ay lubos na pagsuko ng soberanya ng bansa sa tropa ng Estados Unidos: halos lahat ng bahagi ng teritoryo ng Pilipinas, pati lupa't mga gusali at magagamit na likas-ya- man nito, ay pwedeng sakupin ng hukbong Amerikano nang walang pahintulot ng karaniwang mamamayan. Bumalik na tayo muli sa posisyon ng isang kolonya, o di umano'y neokolonya dahil may pagkukunwaring taglay natin ang kasarinlan. Kabalintunaan ba ito?
Sa ano't anuman, una munang pinagkaabalahan ng mga nagpupulong ang PX goods at aliwang karaoke sa Olongapo, hindi ang VFA at patuloy na interben- siyon ng US sa ating soberanya na sumukdol na sa pagpataw ng EDCA. Kaya patas ba ang neokolonya at estado ng bansang nagdidikta ng kondisyon ng VFA sa gobyerno ni Presidente Aquino?
Himayin natin ang sitwasyon. Sa perspektiba ng lingguwistika, tama, bawat wika ay nagsisilbing sapat sa pangangailangan o adhikain ng grupong gu- magamit nito. O sa layon ng partikular na pagsasalin. Ngunit ang wika, anumang senyas o sagisag na may kargadang kahulugan, ay hindi nakalutang sa himpa- pawid o sa pantasiya; nakaugat ito sa espasyong may tiyak na lugar at panahon. Sa globalisasyon ng mundo sa ilalim ng IMF/WB at mga higanteng korporasyon, walang pasubaling global Ingles ang namamayani. Hindi lengguwaheng Intsik, Ruso, Hapon, Pranses, Aleman, Espanyol, o Filipino, salungat sa sentido komun ng mga manunulat na nabanggit. Bakit nagkaganito?
Punto de Vista sa Pagsasaliksik
Dalawang mungkahi. Una, palagay ko'y hindi natin masasagot iyong tanong kung hindi susundin ang ilang gabay o paalala sa pag-ugit ng imbesti- gasyon.
Una, ilagay sa konkretong konteksto ng kasaysayan ng lipunan ang wika o anumang usaping pangkultura. Pangalawa, hindi uubra ang indibidwalistikong pananaw (methological individualism) kung nais natin ang malawakang kontek- stuwalisasyon at praktikang paghuhusga. Bakit? Sapagkat ang lipunan ay hindi koleksiyon ng hiwa-hiwalay na atomistikong indibidwal. Binubuo ito ng artiku- lasyon ng ugnayang panlipunan na may kasaysayan, may lumipas at kinabukasan sa pangkalahatang kabatiran.
Anumang pangyayari ay lilinaw sa pagtarok sa lohika ng pagsudlong ng panahon at lugar. Tinutukoy rito ang konteksto o kuwadrong kinalalagyan ng tema, paksa, buod ng diskurso. Sa madaling salita, kontekstuwalisasyon sa isang
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tiyak na yugto ng kasaysayan at pagtutok sa proseso ng panlipunang relasyon ang dalawang bagay na dapat idiin sa ating pag-aaral ng modernidad. Kung hindi, arbitraryong hatol ng metapisikang pag-iisip ang maghahari.
Pagtugis sa Kasalukuyan
Makasaysayang pagkakataon ito upang pag-isipan natin ang sitwasyon ng Filipinas, ang katayuan ng lipunan at kultura nito, sa panahon ng globalisasyon. Panahon din ito ng malubha't lumalalang krisis ng imperyalismong sumasakop sa buong planeta. Bagamat global ang pananaw, isang sipat na bumabagtas sa bakuran ng mga bansa, lokal pa rin ang pokus ng analitikong pagsusuri ng ispe- sipikong buklod ng mga pangyayari at tauhan. Nakaangkla sa praktikang dalumat ng mga kolektibong lakas kaakibat ng situwasyong nagtatakda at nagbibigay- kahulugan sa bawat teorya at karunungan.
Bagamat tila patag ang lahat sa biglang sulyap, mapag-aalaman na umiiral ang hirarkiya at pagtatagisan ng lakas ang kalakaran. Panahon din ito ng paglan- tad sa "total surveillance" at "drone warfare" na isinasagawa ng US habang patu- loy na pinatitingkad ang giyera laban sa "terorismo"--ibig sabihin, ang interben- syong paglusob at paglupig sa mga bayan at grupong kontra sa imperyalismo ng mga higanteng korporasyong nakabase sa US, Europa, Hapon--ang Global North at mga kaalyado nito. Nakapanig pa rin ang Filipinas sa Global South, nakapailal- im pa rin sa mga industriyalisado't mayamang bansa.
Sa okasyong ito, ilang tesis lamang ang ilalahad ko upang ganap na ta- lakayin natin sa pagpapalitang-kuro hinggil sa usapin ng suliranin ng mod- ernidad.
Nasaan tayo sa hirarkiyang internasyonal? Bagamat kunwaring may kasarin- lang republika buhat pa noong 1946, ang Pilipinas, sa katunayan, ay isang neokolonya ng US. Lantad ito sa pagdepende ng oligarkong gobyerno sa poder militar ng US, at sa mapagpasiyang kapangyarihan nito sa WB /IMF, WTO, G-7, UN, at konsortiya ng mga bangko't nagpapautang na mga ahensiya. Hindi lumang kolonya kundi makabagong anyong angkop sa bagong salinlahi at bagong sensi- bilidad nito.
Sa pandaigdigang situwasyong ito, nakalukob tayo sa panahon ng malub- hang krisis ng kapitalismong pampinansiyal. Ebidensiya ang pagbagsak ng Wall Street, pangalawa sa nakaraang siglo, noong 2008. Mas maselan ito kaysa noong 1929. Napipinto pa raw ang isang mas mapanira't katastropikong pagbulusok sa hinaharap, kalamidad na makapagbabago sa kultura't ideolohiyang pumapat- nubay sa kasalukuyang modernidad. Dito nakalakip kaipala ang post-modernidad ng lahat ng bansa, ang kultura't kaayusang pampulitika't pang-ekonomya nito.
Akumulasyong Walang Iginagalang
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Nakalilito ang mga karatula't palabas sa ating kapaligiran. Maingay ang konsumerismong namamalas na pangunahing aktibidad sa lipunan---laluna sa mga siyudad sa atin na siksikan na ang malls, trapik, gusaling "call centers--kaya tila nakalimutan na ang basehan nito. Paglago ng tubo ang siyang lohika pa rin ng lipunan.
Ngunit huwag tayong palinlang sa namamasid sa nakasisilaw na tabing ng mga palabas. Bagamat iba't ibang porma't paraan ang akumulasyon ng kapital, ng tubo, dahil sa makabagong teknolohiya ng komunikasyon at transportasyon, sa tulong ng kompyuter at Internet, nakasentro pa rin ang sistemang global sa pagkamal ng kapitalista sa surplus-value na nagmumula sa di-binayarang trabaho ng karamihan. Iyon ang bukal ng tubo/profit.
Kasama na rito ang "service workers," OFW--mahigit 12 milyong Pilipinong empleyado sa Saudi, Hong Kong, at saanmang lupalop, pati sa mga barkong nagdadala ng langis at mga produktong ipinagbibili (kabilang na ang armas, bomba, tear gas, atbp). Sa ngayon, anim na libong katawan ang umaalis sa bawat araw, Kung magpapatuloy ang walang kaunlaran ng bansa sa hinaharap, tiyak na mayorya ang tatakas o maghahanap ng bagong tahanan.
Nakalutang ang ekonomya, salamat sa kita o sahod ng 12 milyong OFW, mga kababayang nag-abrod. Sa patuloy na lumalaking remitans nakasandig ang ekonomya ng bansa--dagdag ang "call centers" at iba pang "business outsourc- ing." Walang matibay o malusog na produksiyon ng makina, ng malaking kagami- tan sa industriya, sa atin kundi mga mall, ispekulasyon sa real estate, at "service industry" ng turismo, atbp.
Sa ibang salita, ang tubo o kapital ng uring kumukontrol sa malalaking gamit/paraan ng produksiyon, ay hinuhugot pa rin sa lakas-paggawa ng mayorya, ang mga anakpawis, magbubukid, at mga propesyonal na bumubuo sa panggit- nang saray, ang petiburgesya. Dito nakasalalay ang modernidad ng ordeng inter- nasyonal.
Vortex ng Modernidad
Sa sangandaang ito, maiging idiin ang ilang nakalimutang aksyoma sa agham-panlipunan. Ang pinakaimportanteng katangian ng kapitalismo, ayon kay Marx, na siyang birtud na nagtutulak sa tinaguriang "modernization" at "devel- opment," at humuhubog ng kultura, lifestyle, at araw-araw na pamumuhay ay walang iba kundi ito: walang tigil na transpormasyon ng modo ng produksiyon, walang patid na pagbabago ng kagamitan at proseso ng produksiyon ng lahat ng bagay, at reproduksiyon ng relasyong panlipunan/ugnayan ng mga tao. Nakasalalay dito ang pagsulong ng lipunan, ang paghahati ng panahon.
Sa dagling paglalagom: "Everything solid melts into air...." proklamasyon ng Communist Manifesto. Pangkalahatang pagbabago, pag-iiba.
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Nais kong salungguhitan ang katotohanang naipaliwanag na nina Marx, Engels, at sinaunang pantas tulad nina David Ricardo, Saint-Simon, at iba pa. Materyalistikong diyalektika ang nagsisiwalat sa rebolusyong nagpapasulong sa kasaysayan ng mundo. Ang rebolusyong ito ng "mode of production" (na umuugit sa kompitensiya ng iba't ibang paksyon o grupo ng burgesya) ang sali- gan ng modernidad sa estilo ng buhay, ng kultura, ng sensibilidad at mentalidad ng bawat lipunan. Mabuting tandaan: ito ang motor o makina ng pagbabago sa diwa, ugali, gawi, at damdamin ng ordinaryong nilalang.
Siguradong dama at danas na ng lahat ang mga nangyayari sa kapaligiran, bagamat hindi nila tarok ang mekanismo't dahilan nito. Sintomas ng pagbabago ay masisilip at makakapa sa larangan ng ideolohiya--relihiyon, pulitika, sining, mass midya, atbp.--kung saan nakikita, nararamdaman, natutuklasan ang pag- tatagisan ng ibat ibang pwersa sa lipunan sa bawat yugto ng kasaysayan. Ang modernidad ng globalisasyon ay nagkakatawan sa tekstura't istraktura ng ideolo- hiya.
Metamorposis ng Kapaligiran
Bumalik tayo sa tema ng lugar at panahon. Pwedeng ituring na alam natin kung nasaan tayo. Kung di ninyo alam, konsultahin ang GPS, o inyong cellphone. Kung sa bagay, nagtatalo pa rin ang mga akademiko hinggil sa diyalektika ng "place" (lugar) at "space" (espasyo) sa isyu ng globalisasyon. Dahil nga sa kompyuterisasyon, nakompress ang espasyo--ayon kay David Harvey sa kanyang librong The Condition of Postmodernity--kaya panahon, bilis ng pagkitid ng es- pasyo, dagliang transaksyon--ang makatuturang problemang kinakaharap natin ngayon, ang "politics of time." Dapat tayong maghatol sa halaga at katuturan ng bawat baytang sa pag-inog ng panahon, ang katuturan at kalagahan ng bawat ba- hagi nito.
Ginawang larangan ng pagsukat at pagtimbang ang bawat bahagi ng kasaysayan, ang pagkilala sa bahagdan ng kasaysayan. Paano babansagan ang bawat hati ng panahon upang makatiyak sa ating pinanggalingan at patutun- guhan? Nasaan tayo sa temporalisasyon ng kasaysayan? Bakit importante na nasa unahan tayo at hindi sa huli? Paano ang pagkilala sa huli at una, at pagkakahalintulad o pagkakaiba ng mga ito? Ano ang bentaha nito, ano ang imp- likasyon nito sa ordinaryong karanasan ng mamamayan?
Siyasatin natin ang mapa ng panahunan. Tanggap ng lahat na pagkatapos ng krisis noong 1970, minarkahan ng pagkatalo ng U.S. sa IndoTsina, nagbago ang mundo sa pag-urong ng Unyon Sobyet sa antas ng "booty capitalism." Sumunod ang Tsina at Biyetnam, ngayo'y mahigpit na kasangkot sa pandaigdigang ikot ng akumulasyon ng tubo. Pumasok tayo sa panibagong yugto pagkaraan ng 9/11; at paglunsad ng digmaan laban sa tinaguriang "teroristang" extremists--giyera sa Afghanistan, Syria, Palestina-Israel, Ukraine, at kampanya ng NATO laban sa Iran
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ukol sa langis, petroleo, na bukal ng pangunahing enerhiya pa ring gamit sa mga importanteng pabrika ng higanteng korporasyon sa buong mundo.
Sa ngayon, nasa bingit tayo ng giyera laban sa Rusya at Tsina--sintomas lahat ito na patuloy na kompetisyon ng mga paksyon ng kapitalismong global hinggil sa pamilihan ng komoditi, kung saan ipagbibili ang yaring produkto, at kung saan kukuha ng hilaw na materyales sa produksiyon. Sa kontekstong ito, mabilis ang pagbabago ng kagamitan sa produksiyon at pagsasakatuparan sa paghango ng tubo/profit. Ang malaking tubo ngayon ay galing sa upa, sa utang (credit/debt), sa palitan ng salapi at iba pang instrumentong pampinansiyal, na susi ng imperyalismong salot ngayon. Mabilis din ang buhos at agos ng penome- nang kaakibat nito sa anyo ng kultura ng araw-araw na kabuhayan.
Digmaan sa Arena ng Kultura
Samantala, maalingasngas ang usapin ng NSA (National Security Adminis- tration ng U.S.), espiya o surveillance, tortyur, at kagyat na asasinasyon o pag- paslang ng sibilyan sa pamamagitan ng drone, atbp. Talagang tumitingkad ang krisis ng kalikasan, sampu ng paglusaw ng Artika at Antartika. Penomenal ang Yolanda, baha, lindol, bagyo sa Mindanao, at iba pang sintomas ng epekto ng kabihasnang pinaiinog ng exchange-value, salapi, tubo.
Tanda ba ito ng bagong epoka, o pag-uulit lamang ng nauna at walang pro- gresyong pag-inog na kasaysayan?
Walang tigil na pag-uulit ng araw-araw na buhay o pagbabago--alin ang at- ing oryentasyon? Saan tumutungo ang takbo ng panahon, ang gulong ng kasaysayan? Para sa konserbatibong modernista (tulad ni Martin Heidegger), repetisyon ng tradisyon at mito ng lahi ang dulo ng pagpapasiyang umiral sa harap ng takdang kamatayan. Ito ang solusyon sa eksistensiyalistang kilabot. Ang mito ng Volk ay siyang kalutasan sa angst ng tiyak na pagsapit ng itinakdang kamatayan. Nalutas ang indibidwal na kapalaran sa mistipikasyon ng dugo't lupa ng Volk. Ito ang doktrina ng Nazi sa Alemanya noong nakaraang siglo. At ipinag- papatuloy kakatwa ng mga liderato ng Zionista sa Israel laban sa mga Palestino at iba pang rasa sa Gitnang Silangan.
Maraming kategorya rin ng transpormasyong titigil at tuwirang puputol sa repetisyon ng araw-araw na buhay. Para sa radikal na modernista (tulad ni Walter Benjamin), ang kasukdulan ng panahon ay pagputol sa repetisyon--sa opresyon at kahirapan--sa katuparan ng Ngayon, pagpapalaya sa pwersang sinupil o sin- ugpo sa araw-araw upang maligtas ang lahat. Transpormasyong radikal ang kailangan.
Maraming paraan ng liberasyon ng araw-araw na buhay, na makikita sa avant-garde na kilusan ng suryalismo, futurismo, konstruktibismo, situwasyon- ismo, sining konseptuwal, atbp. Kaalinsabay nito ang mga rebolusyonaryong
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proyektong pampulitika ng mga anarkista, sindikalista, at sosyalistang nilagom nina Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Luxemburg, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Gue- varra, Amilcar Cabral at iba pa. Kasalukuyang sinusubok din ang iba't ibang uri ng liberasyong pambansa, o pambansang demokrasya, sa Venezuela, Pilipinas, Hilagang Korea, Mexico (konsultahin ang masinop na pagsasalaysay ng pi- losopiya ng Pangatlong Mundo sa libro ni Enrique Dussel, Ethics of Liberation(Durham & London, 2013).
Karnabal ng Pakikipagsapalaran
Dalawin muli natin ang matinik na temang inilunsad sa umpisa. Anong yug- to ng kasaysayan tayo ngayon? Saang dako ng proseso ng modernidad (hindi modernisasyon) nakahinto ang bansang Pilipinas?
Ang temporalisasyon ng kasaysayan ay pag-uulit ng nakaraang karanasan. Ngunit sino ang sumusukat o tumitimbang sa agos ng panahon at paano ito natatarok na makaluma o makabago? Makatatakas ba tayo sa rutang siklikal na krisis ng kapitalismo o imperyalismo? Makaiiwas ba tayo sa kalamidad sa pagbuo ng ibang hugis o uri ng makabago, ng modernidad, ng kontemporaneo nang hindi pinapalitan ang lohika ng kapitalismo?
Bihag pa rin tayo ng indibidwalistikong pananaw, ng "methodological indi- vidualism" ng burgesyang sosyolohiya at sikolohiya. Suhetibismo't relatibismong kalkulasyon ang resulta. Nakakulong pa rin tayo sa atomistikong pagtingin, ti- walag sa konkretong konteksto ng kasaysayan. Nakatago pa rin ang tunay na kawalan ng katarungan sa alyenasyong namamayani sanhi sa reipikasyon ng ug- nayang panlipunan. Ang ugnayan ng bawat tao ay nilalason o nilalambungan ng petisismo ng komoditi, ang pagsamba sa salapi, tubo, mga produktong mas ma- halaga pa kaysa buhay ng mga taong yumari o lumikha nito.
Ang mga problemang ito ang dapat masinsinang bulatlatin. Dapat mata- mang tugaygayan ang temporalisasyon ng historya at uri ng modernidad sa araw- araw na kabuhayan upang maipaliwanag ang kinabukasan ng bansa sa gitna ng krisis ng kapitalismong global. At upang mapalaya ang nasugpo't nasisikil na en- erhiya ng taumbayan, ang kinabukasan ng diwa't budhi ng bawat nilalang. Susi ito sa problema ng pagkadehado o atrasado ng kabuhayan ng ating bayan.
Maidagdag pa na ang krisis na ito ay di pansamantala lamang kundi per- manente, batay sa mabangis na rasyonalidad ng sistemang kapitalista: ang walang hintong pagbabago ng paraan o mekanismo ng produksiyon, ang walang tigil na pagsulong ng imbensiyon ng mga gamit sa produksiyon, ng teknolohiya, at mga produktong ipinagbibili sa pamilihang pandaigdig. Naidiin ko na: ito ang saligan ng modernidad, ng mabilis na pag-iiba at transpormasyon ng mga bagay- bagay sa kapaligiran, hanggang sa epokang digital at mabilisang komunikasyon. Kalakip nito ang susi ng modernidad at globalisasyong sumisira sa kalikasan at pinagmumulan ng giyera at pagdurusa ng nakararami.
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Alyenasyon at Reipikasyon
Sa lipunang pinatatakbo ng tubo, salapi at komoditi ang namamagitan sa bawat tao. Alyenasyon ang bunga nito. Reipikasyon o pagtiwalag sa maram- daming buhay ang resulta nito. Kontrolado ng komoditi ang lahat, ginawang bagay na walang buhay ang tao, sinipsip ng mga bampira ang dugo ng bawat ni- lalang.
Sapagkat sa ordinaryong karanasan, ang tunay na pagtatagisan ng mga uri at sektor sa lipunan ay nakatago o natatabingan ng petisismo sa komoditi--ang buong mundo ng salapi, negosyo, pagpapalitan ng binili-ipinagbili--sampu ng mistipikasyon ng reyalidad dulot ng relihiyong institusyonal, pyudal na gawi't paniniwala (halimbawa, ang doxa na demokrasya raw ang sistemang pampulitika natin)--katungkulan ng mapagpalayang kritiko/intelektwal pampubliko ang wasakin ang tabing na nagtatago sa katotohanan: ang paghahati ng lipunan sa ilang mayamang nagsasamantala at karamihang aping binubusabos. Ibunyag ang pagtatagisan sa likod ng tinaguriang normalidad ng pagsasamahan o natural na pakikipamuhay araw-araw.
Nasaan tayo ngayon? Ano ang dapat gawin? Sa harap ng mistipikasyon ng komersiyanteng kultura at araw-araw na komodipikasyon ng karanasan, dapat sikapin ng makabayang intelektwal ang pagbubunyag sa katotohanan ng neokolonya, ang patuloy na pagsunod ng oligarkong namumuno sa utos ng USA (sa tulong ng mga kakutsabang elite na kinabibilangan ng oligarkong komprador, burokrata at panginoong maylupang taglay ang pyudal na ugali) at pagpapailalal- im ng kapakanan ng taumbayan sa interes ng tubo ng korporasyong global. Pag- wasak ng mga ilusyon at kababalaghang pumapalamuti sa mandaraya't mapan- linlang na burgesyang orden ang dapat adhikain ng mapagpalayang sensibilidad at mapanuring kamalayan. Lumaban tayo sa ngalan ng prinsipyo ng katarungan, katunayan, at egalitaryong kalayaan.
Sa Wika Nakataya ang Katubusan
Maibalik ko ang usapan sa wika o lengguwaheng sinasalita at isinusulat.
Ang wika ng kumbersasyon, midya, paaralan, kultura, atbp., ay madugong larangan din ng pagtatagisan ng mga uri, ng burgesyang gamit ang Ingles--o baryasyon nito na mga "englishes'-- bilang sandatang ideolohikal sa pagsuhay sa buong sistema ng palsipikadong soberanya at walang hustisyang demokrasya. Sa gusto o ayaw mo, wika ay sandata o kagamitan sa ideolohiyang pagtatagisan ng mga uri. Samakatwid, pinipili ka ng wika upang magpasiya laban sa interes ng iyong kolektibo o upang magsumikap itaguyod ang kapakanan nito.
Paglimiin natin ang nangyayari sa milieu na lunang sosyo-politikal na ating ginagalawan. Araw-araw, sa TV, Internet, pelikula, radyo, at iba pang midya, ang
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wikang ginagamit--na nakakabit sa mga imahen, dramatikong eksena, perfor- mance art, awit, at komplikadong salik ng pelikula-- ang wika ay siyang sangkap na makapangyarihang umuugit ng mensahe na siyang nagtutulak sa ating kumi- los, magsalita't gumanap ng isang tiyak na papel sa lipunan, partikular na ang maging konsumer at masunuring mamamayan. Sa ibang salita, maging isang subalternong alagad ng imperyalismo.
Mapang-akit at mapang-gayuma ang nangingibabaw na kakintalan, ang kagyat na impresyon ng kapaligirin, na nakasaplot sa katotohanan. Nakabubulag ito at nakaliligaw. Upang makaligtas sa alyenasyon at reipikasyong nabanggit ko na, kailangang hubarin ang balat-kayo, ang saplot ng pagkukunwari't panlilinlang ng burgesyang ideolohiya. Kailangang tistisin at buhaghagin ang mga mapang- gayumang idolo ng pamilihan, ng tangahalan, ng midya at iba pang institusyong aparato ng explotasyon at pagsasamantala.
May aral na mahuhugot dito. Kung pesimistiko ang utak, sikaping maging optimistiko ang pagnanais, payo ni Antonio Gramsci. May dahilan kung bakit masigla ang pagnanais bagamat maulap ang kabatiran. Hindi malagim ang lahat ng sulok ng larangan ng kultura. Ang halimbawa ng mga kritikong sumusulat sa PINOY WEEKLY o BULATLAT, mga progresibong midya, at mga kapanalig sa iba pang midya at diskurso ay isang katibayan na ang malikhai't mahusay na artiku- lasyon ng konsepto ng katwiran at katarungan sa wikang umaabot sa nakararam- ing mambabasa--ang wikang sinasalita ng taumbayan--ay siyang mabisang kagamitan sa pagpukaw ng mapanuring kamalayan, ng mapagmalasakit na damdamin.
Kahinugan ng Panahon
Balik-tanawin ang paksang bumabagabag sa mga pampublikong intelihen- siya ngayon.
Sa panahon ng total surveillance, ang konsumerismong modernidad ng neokolonyang Pilipinas ay nagkukubli ng lumalalang problema ng malalim at mabagsik na paghahati ng ilang pangka ng mga mayaman at mayoryang mahi- rap. Huwag nang ibilang pa ang ekolohiyang kalamidad at pagsira sa kalikasan. Ang remitans ng mahigit 12 milyong OFW, na siyang dahilan ng pagpapatuloy ng kapangyarihan ng oligarkong rehimen, sampu ng mga instrumentong ideolohikal (iskwela, militar, korte, burokrasya, simbahan, midya), ay lantad sa panganib ng krisis cyclical ng kapitalismong pampinansiyal.
Pag-isipan ang isang sintomas nito. Maraming Pinoy na humanga sa pe- likulang "Ilo-ilo" na ginawa ng isang taga-Singapore at tinustusan ng gobyernong Singapore, ay walang memorya sa pagbitay kay Flor Contemplacion at kasawian ng maraming kababayan sa Singapore. Sa harap ng napipintong "global melt- down" ng imperyalistang orden, sa matinding kumprontasyon ng mga nagtu- tunggaling mga pwersa (USA, Tsina, Rusya, Europa), pati na ang digmaan laban
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sa terorismong tutol sa paghahari ng USA, Europa, at transnational power-elite, ano ang maaring posisyong dapat piliin ng Filipinong nag-iisip at hangad lumaya? Ano ang situwasyon natin at sirkunstansiyang magtutulak sa ating de- sisyon?
Ibaling natin ang kamalayan sa ngayon. Ang kumbersasyon natin sa pagkakataong ito ay isang paraan upang makatulong sa edukasyon ng nakarara- mi at mobilisasyon sa mga kolektibong proyektong makapagsusulong at maka- pagpapabuti sa sawing kalagayan ng nakararami. Hanggang may nakikinig at handang kumilos salungat sa indibidwalismong naghahari, may pag-asa pa ang ating bayan.
Ang kontradiksiyon ng modernidad ay nagbubunga ng kanyang kalutasan. Sa anahon ng globalisasyon, sa mas mabilis at mabilisang pagbabagu-bago ng lahat ng bagay, sa disyerto ng mall at mga "Global City" na itinatayo sa guho ng mga tahanan ng maralitang taga-lunsod at sa bukid na inagaw sa mga magsasa- ka, kailangan ang mapangahas at subersibong panulat upang tuklasin ang kato- tohanan at itanghal ito sa panunuri't pagkilatis, pagtimbang at pagpapahalaga, ng taumbayan. Mabigat ngunit mapanglikhang pananagutan at katungkulan ito para sa mga nagnanais ng kasarinlan at kalayaan.
Mapanghamong tawag ito na hinihingi ng sitwasyon, isang pagkakataon kung saan ang diskurso ng manunulat, kritiko't guro ay makapagsisilbi sa pagpa- palaya't pag-unlad sa tunay na ugat at bukal ng kanilang imahinasyon, ang sim- pleng araw-araw na buhay ng masang yumayari ng kayamanan ng lipunan, ang proletaryo't magsasaka ng bayang naghihimagsik. -
II.PROYEKTO SA PAGBUO NG KOLEKTIBONG MEMORYA NG NAGKAKAISANG- HANAY
O, BAKIT WALANG PAHINGA ANG PAKIKIBAKA KAHIT NAGAYUMA SA INTERLUDE NG AWIT?
Ilang Pagninilay sa “Bakas” ni E. San Juan, Jr.
Sa puwang ng ilang pahina, hiniling ng patnugot na ipahayag ko ang ars poet- ikang nakatalik sa tulang “Bakas.” Balighong hinuha, ngunit sa tangkang paunlakan,
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sinubok ng makata ang interpretasyong sumusunod na bukas sa anumang pasubali, pagwawasto, at pagpapabulaan.
Pambungad na gabay muna: Huwag kalimutan na nakapaloob sa kolonyalis- mong orden ang lahat ng intelektwal sa ating bayan, mula 1899 hanggang 1946, at sa neokolonyalistang istrukturang saligan ng Estadong nakapailalim sa imperyalismong U.S. Dahil sa kapangyarihan ng pribadong pag-aari (kapitalista, piyudal) at di- makatarungang dibisyon ng trabaho, patuloy ang digmaan ng mga uri’t iba’t ibang sek- tor ng lipunan. Mistipikasyon at obskurantismo ang namayani sa klima ng panahon ng pagkagulang ng makata (1938-1948), at utilitaryanismong neoliberal mula 1949 hang- gang sa ngayon. Samantala, maigting din ang paglago ng mga puwersang sumasalun- gat sa hegemonya ng kapitalismong global.
Walang tabula rasa sa naratibo ng talambuhay. Masasaksihan doon ang suli- ranin ng “Unhappy Consciousness” (Hegel) na diyalektika ng ugnayan ng alipin at panginoon sa islang sinakop. Kolonyalisadong mentalidad ang minana ng makata hanggang magkaroon ng kabatiran sa panahon ng anti-imperyalismong pag-aalsa la- ban sa U.S. interbensiyon sa Vietnam at pagsuporta sa diktaduryang Marcos (1972-1986). Ang katotohanan ng kolonisasyon/neokolonisasyon ng isang subalterno at kung paano maitatakwil ito’t makahuhulagpos sa nakasusukang bangungot ng pang- aapi’t dominasyon—ito ang tema ng “Bakas.” Sa trabaho ng negasyon, sa pamamagi- tan ng gawaing subersyon ng umiiral, bumubukal ang kinabukasan na siyang katubu- san ng nakalipas. Ililigtas din nito ang Rason/Ideyang ipinagtanggol ng mga bayaning nagbuwis ng buhay upang mapalaya ang sambayanang lumilikha ng pagkataong Fil- ipino at kalinangang batayan ng sosyalismong hinaharap.
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Mapa ng Salaysay
Di na dapat sabihin na matatarok lamang ang buod ng karanasan kung pagdu- rugtungin sa banghay ng naratibo ang proseso ng pagsulong at kinahinatnan. Mauu- nawaan sa gayon ang Konsepto (Begriff) ng kolektibong kamalayang nagbabanyuhay. Kaya susubaybayan natin ang detalye ng panahon at lugar na sumasagisag dito. Bawat nilalang ay nakaangkla sa isang espasyong partikular, lunan o pook kung saan nakaluk- lok ang Ideyang Unibersal (“Geist,” bansag ni Hegel; ang kooperatibang humanidad, sa isip ni Marx-Engels). Ngunit walang kabuluhan ito kung hindi nailalakip sa daloy ng kasaysayan.
Naimungkahi ni Henri Lefebvre na ang produksiyon ng espasyo ay isang usaping kaugnay ng buhay o kamatayan para sa bawat lahi. Naisusog niya na walang makaiilag sa “trial by space—an ordeal which is the modern world’s answer to the judgment of God or the classical conception of fate” (The Production of Space, 1991, p. 416). Ad- hikain ng tula ang himaymayin ang ideolohiyang minana sa kolonisadong kultura ng Commonwealth at neokolonyang Republika sa paraan ng paghahalo’t pag-uugnay ng iba’t ibang kontradiksiyon ng karanasan, paghahalintulad ng pira-pirasong yagit ng guni- ta, alanganin, pagsisisi, panimdim, pangarap, pagkabigo, mapangahas na pagsabak sa daluyong ng pakikipagsapalaran. Makikilatis ang tunguhin ng bawat tagpo sa tula: ang balak na lumikha ng identidad mula sa metapisikal na indibidwalistikong ego tungo sa isang konsepto ng budhi ng pagkatao. Sa kabilang dako, layon din na makalinang ng isang diwa o matris ng kolektibong ahensiya ng uring gumagawa o yumayari—sa ibang salita, ang ahensiyang istorikal ng mga manggagawa’t pesante, ang bayang pumipiglas
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sa kadena ng imperyalismo’t burokratang kapitalismong namamayani hanggang ngay- on. Ito ang protagonistang uugit sa transpormasyong radikal ng bansa.
Sinikap dito na isatinig ang kolektibong memorya sa pagbabay sa mga kon- tradiksiyong masisinag sa karanasan ng makata. Kailangang ilugar ang nangungusap na aktor sa isang takdang yugto ng kasaysayan. Kung walang katawan, walang mararamdamang pangyayari, walang bisa’t katuturan ang pontensiyal ng kaluluwa— ang birtud ng inkarnasyon. Sino ang bumulong ng balitang isisilang na ang Mesiyas? Kinakasangkapan ng sining ang ilusyon ng anyo o hitsurang nadarama upang maibun- yag ang katotohanan, ang sintesis ng sangkap at kaakibat na totalidad. Sa gayon, hindi matatakasan ang araw-araw na pakikihamok, tuwa’t daing ng mga katawang magkaba- likat. Bawat pulso ng wika’y siya ring pulso ng body politic, ang komunidad na kinabibi- langan ng makata. Artikulasyon ng katutubong wika (hindi Ingles) ang mabisa’t mabun- gang medyasyon ng bahagi at kabuuan.
Mobilisasyon ng Pagnanasa
Nasaan tayo ngayon? Patungo saan? Balitang nakatambad sa Internet: Martial law sa Mindanao, patayan sa Marawi City ngayon, mistulang katuparan ng binhing naipunla noong dekada 1972-1986 kung saan namulat ang makata sa realidad. Paano maipangangatwiran ang sining/panitikan sa gitna ng gulo’t ligalig, malagim at nakasisin- dak na paghahari ng terorismong gawad ng imperyalistang globalisasyon? Paano maikikintal sa konsiyensiya ng lahi ang balangkas ng buhay na nakagapos sa anomie at alyenasyong naibunsod ng komodipikasyon ng bawat bagay—panggagahis o pag-
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bebenta sa karanasan, pag-ibig, seks, panaginip? Lahat ay nalusaw sa fantasmagorya ng salapi at bilihing lumamon sa dugo’t espiritu ng bawat tao. Saan ang lunas sa malubhang salot na nagbuhat pa sa pagsakop ng Estados Unidos nang mabuwag ang proyekto ng himagsikan ng 1896 at nalubog tayo sa barbarismong laganap ngayon? Nabalaho ang kasaysayan natin sa gayuma ng komoditi/bilihin, sa diskursong burgis ng pamilihan/salapi at indibidwalistikong pagpapayaman.
Ituring na alegorya ang imahen, tayutay o talinghagang ikinabit dito sa ilang pook ng MetroManila kung saan nagkaroon ng kamalayang sosyal ang makata. Isinilang bago pumutok ang WW2, nasagap pa ang huling bugso ng nasyonalismo ng Philippine Commonwealth (Avenida Rizal). Nagbinata noong panahon ng Cold War, panahon ng Korean War at pagsugpo sa Huk rebelyon—rehimen nina Quirino, Magsaysay at Carlos Garcia (Montalban, Rizal). Tinalunton ang landas tungo sa pagpasok sa Jose Abad Santos High School noong nakatira sa Balintawak; at sa paglipat sa Craig, Sampaloc, nasabit sa mga anarkistang pulutong sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas.
Di sinasadya itong makitid na ruta ng uring petiburgis. Paniwala ito ng aktor/ suheto ng pansaliring pagnanais. Natambad sa positibismong pilosopiya nina Dr. Ricar- do Pascual at mga kapanalig—sina Cesar Majul at Armando Bonifacio—at nakisangkot ang awtor sa kampanya nina Recto-Tanada noong dekada 1954-58. Nakilahok din sa praxis ng diskursong sekular laban sa panghihimasok ng ilang reaksyonaryong kleriko sa akademya. Nakakawing sa mga pook na naitala ang ilang pangyayaring nagsilbing konteksto sa paghubog ng diwang mapagpalaya’t makabayan, diwang tumututol sa umiiral na ordeng puspos ng pagsasamantala’t korapsiyon, ng walang tigil na tung-
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galian ng uri, kaalinsabay sa pagsigla ng pambansang pagsisikap makalaya’t makamit ang tunay na kasarinlan at pambansang demokrasya.
Salungat sa pormalistikong estetikong iginigiit ng akademikong institusyon ang buhay ng makatang tinalunton dito. Litaw na nagbago ang kamalayan sa pamamagitan ng ugnayan ng praktika at teorya, hindi lang pragmatikong pakikilahok at pakikiramay. Maraming balakid, natural, ang ruta ng gitnang klase sa lipunan. Tubo sa petiburgesyang uri—guro sa haiskul at pamantasan ang mga magulang, na naging ka- mag-aral nina Loreto Paras-Sulit at henerasyon nina Jose Garcia Villa at Salvador P. Lppez—naging huwaran ang mga intelektuwal sa milyu ng Komonwelt. Unang pumukaw sa imahinasyon sng mga pelikulang Hollywood, mga huntahahan ng tiyo’t tiya sa Blumentritt, ang mga kuwento ng kaiskuwela sa Jose Abad Santos High School sa Meisic, Reina Regente, na ngayo’y higanteng mall sa Binondo. Nagpasigla rin si Manuel Viray, tanyag na kritiko, at naglaon sina Franz Arcellana, Rony Diaz, Ernie Man- alo, Pete Daroy, Gerardo Acay, Carlos Platon, Ruben Garcia, atbp. Huwag nang bang- gitin ang palasintahing pagpaparaos ng panahon na pwedeng suriin sa isang nobelang education sentimental—tila kalabisan na ito, mangyari pa.
Naligaw na Mapa ng Paglalagalag
Bagamat kabilang sa mga petiburgesyang etsa-puwera, hindi biglang naging maka-kaliwa ang awtor—matinding impluwensiya sa simula ang Existentialismong naisadula nina Sartre, Camus, Marcel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard. Ginagad sina Villa, T.S. Eliot, Wynhdam Lewis (tingnan ang “Man is a Political Animal” at iba pang detalye sa Kritika Kultura #26 ) at mga awtor na tinangkilik ng mga kaibigang kalaro sa bilyaran at
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kainuman sa Soler, Sta. Cruz, Quiapo at Balara. Tanda ko na laging bitbit ko noong kat- ulong ako sa Collegian ang libro ni Sartre, What is Literature? Hihintayin pa ang dekada 1965-1975 bago mapag-aralan sina Mao, Lenin, Lukacs, Marx, Engels, Gramsci, atbp. Nauna si Mao noong huling dako ng dekada 1960, at sumunod si Georg Lukacs sa an- tolohiya kong Marxism and Human Liberation (1972). Mapapansin ang indibiduwalis- tikong himig ng tula, na hango kina T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, at W.B. Yeats, mga ma- nunulat na naging ulirang padron noong aktibo sa UP Writers Club at sa krusadang anti- obskurantismong pinamunuan nina Pascual, Alfredo Lagmay, Augstin Rodolfo, Leopol- do Yabes, Elmer Ordonez, at iba pang guro sa pamantasan. Nakaimpluwensiya ang mga sallita’t kilos ng mga iskolar-ng-bayan, at naging tulay ang tradisyong humanis- tikong iyon sa pakikipagtulungan ko kina Amado V. Hernandez at Alejandro Abadilla noong mga dekada 1960-1967. Hindi dapat kaligtaan ang pakikisama ng awtor kina Ben Medina Jr., Rogelio Mangahas, Ave Perez Jacob, Efren Abueg, at ibang kapanalig sa kilusang makabayan.
Bakit panitik o sining ang napiling instrumento upang maisatinig ang mailap na katuturan/kahulugan ng buhay? Anong saysay ng tula sa harap ng mabilis na trans- pormasyon ng lipunan—ang pag-unlad nito o pagbulusok sa lusak ng barbarismo ni Duterte at oligarkong kasabwat? Noon, masasambit bigla ang pormularyo ng Talks at the Yenan Forum ni Mao. Sapantaha kong nakausad na tayo mula sa dogmatikong gawi. Sukat nang sipiin ang bigkas ni Amado Hernandez sa panayam niya tungkol sa sitwasyon ng mga manunulat noong 1968: “Ang kanilang mga katha ay hindi na bun- gangtulog kundi mga katotohanang nadarama, kaugnay at kasangkot sa mga pakikiba- ka ng lipunan at taongbayan at ng pagbabalikwas ng uring dukha laban sa inhustisya
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sosyal ng mga manghuhuthot at mapanlagom” (Panata sa Kalayaan ni Ka Amado, ed. Andres Cristobal Cruz, 1970).
Salungguhitan ang Sangandaan
Nasa kalagitnaan na tayo ng pagtawid sa ibayong pampang, bagamat naudlot ang usapang pangkapayaan sa pagitan ng gobyerno at National Democratic Front (NDFP). . Inaasahan kong naisaulo na natin ang prinsipyo ng materyalismong istorikal: ang konkretong analisis ng masalimuot na paglalangkap ng sari-saring dimensiyon ng anumang krisis sa kasaysayan. Umpisahan natin ang mapanuring pagtalakay ng kasaysayan sa metodong Marksista: malawak ang imbak na posibilidad ng sam- bayanan, ngunit ito’y binhi pa lamang ng kinabukasang nahihimbing sa pusod ng kasalukuyan (ayon kay Ernst Bloch). Gayunpaman, hindi natin mahuhulaaan ang tiyak na oras o sandali ng kagyat na pagsalimbay at pagdagit ng anghel ng Katubusan.
Ito ang dahilan sa pagdiin ng makata sa kontradiksiyon ng di-maiiwasang pan- gangailan at libertad, ang larangan ng contingency at ng nesesidad. Naitanghal na ito ng mga suryalistikong artista at nina Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Lu Hsun, Aime Ce- saire, atbp. At naipaliwanag din ito sa pilosopiya nii C.S. Peirce (ang polarisasyon ng tadhana at aksidente; tychism, synechism). Sa paglagom, ang kalayaan ay nagmumula sa pagkabatid sa batas ng kalikasan (tendensiya, hindi istriktong batas, batay sa galaw o kilos ng produktibong lakas ng komunidad).
Sa masinop na imbestigasyon, masisilip din ito sa Tao Te Ching, o sa akda nina Clausewitz at Sun Tzu hinggil sa arte ng digmaan. Kaugnay nito, pag-isipan din natin ang turo na ang sining ay hindi tuwirang salamin ng realidad kundi simbolikong praktika.
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Sa pamamagitan ng retorika, talinghaga, sagisag, binibigyan ng solusyong ideolohikal o pang-imahinasyon ang kongkretong kontradiksiyong pulitikal-sosyal sa lipunan. Tungku- lun ng manapanuring aktibista ang pagsiyasat at pagsaliksik sa subtexto na mga kon- tradiksiyong pinoproblema sa karaniwang buhay ng madla sa lipunan.
Pahimakas sa Patnubay ng mga Bathala
Sa larangan ng malikhaing panulat, desideratum sa makata ang paghabi ng makabagong artikulasyon sa loob ng parametro ng sistemang lingguwistika, at sa musikero ang pagyari ng baryasyon sa tema sa loob ng kumbensyonal na kuwadrong sonata o fugue, halimbawa. Lumisan na ang Musang maipagbubunyi. Naiwan na lamang ang gumuhong labi ng malungkuting alingawngaw ni Maria Makiling sa Pinag- buhayan ng bundok Banahaw. Marahil, bukas, makikipag-ulayaw tayo sa mga Pulang Mandirigmang nagdiriwang sa liberated zone ng Sierra Madre.
Balik-aralin ang proposisyon ni Sartre: Kanino mananagot ang manunulat? O sa pagtatasa ni Brecht: dapat bang mang-aliw o magturo ang manunulat? Maari bang pag- isahin ang naihiwalay sa aksyomang klasikong dulce et decorum, ang responsibilidad na magpataas ng kamalayan habang nagliliwaliw at nagsasaya? Maibabalik ba ang gin- tong panahon nina Balagtas at Lope K. Santos?
Sa panahon ng kapitalismong neoliberal, at madugong militarisasyon ng bansa (sa ironikal na taguring Oplan Pangkapayapaan), paano maisasakatuparan ang pagba- balikwas sa lumang rehimen at pagtatag ng makatarungang orden? Paano mapupukaw ang manhid na sensibilidad ng gitnang-uri na nabulok na sa walang-habas na ko- modipikasyon? Hindi na matutularan ang huwarang kontra-modernismo ng makatang
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Charles Baudelaire, halimbawa, na nagsiwalat ng kabulukan ng burgesyang lipunan noong ika-1800 siglo (ayon kay Walter Benjamin,The Writer of Modern Life, 2006).
Ano ang dapat gawin? Malayo na tayo sa milyung inilarawan ni Ka Amado noong 1968. Sa ngayon, ang katungkulan ng mandirigmang makata (mithiin ng awtor ng “Bakas”) ay makisangkot sa pagbuo ng hegemonya ng proletaryo’t magbubukid bilang organikong intelektuwal ng nagkakaisang-hanay (tagubilin ni Gramsci) sa panahon ng imperyalismong sumasagka sa pagtatamasa ng kasarinlan at kaunlaran ng bansa. Huwag kalimutan ang Balanggiga? Oo, subalit huwag ding kalimutan ang Maliwalu, Es- calante, Mendiola, Marawi! Itampok ang bumabangong kapangyarihan ng sambayanan! Sa halip na mag-fokus sa egotistikang talambuhay, ibaling ang isip sa mabalasik na bugso’t pilantik ng kolektibong gunita na mauulinigan sa musika ng “Bakas.” Sukat na itong magsilbing pahimakas sa kabanatang ito ng paglalakbay ng manlilikha sa mapan- ganib na pakikisalamuha (hindi pakikipagkapwa) sa digmaang-bayang rumaragasa’t patuloy na gumigimbal at bumabalantok sa buhay ng bawat nilalang sa milenyong ito. —##
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↧
METAKOMENTARYO SA GAWAING PANGKULTURA-PAMPOLITIKA, isyu ng Kritika Kultura #26
Metakomentaryo sa Pagkakataon ng Kolokyum Ukol sa “The Places of E. San Juan, Jr.”
E. San Juan, Jr.
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Abstract
In a provisional synthesis of his lifework, E. San Juan, Jr. surveys the issues and aporias that define his critical oeuvre. He warns at the outset against the narcissism of autobiographical acts, or what he calls the selfie mode. In locating himself, San Juan uses instead the historicizing lens. In this metacommentary, San Juan locates his life project between his birth in 1938, which saw the defeat of the Republican forces in Spain and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, and the new millennium marked by 9/11 and imperialist terrorism. He begins with the class background of his parents and moves on to discuss his years as an undergraduate at the University of the Philippines-Diliman; his graduate education at Harvard; his collaboration with Tagalog writers; his radicalization as a professor at the University of California-Davis, and at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, in the midst of the nationalist movements, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights era; and his late engagement with the question of racism. San Juan also names the sources of his radical politics as well as the aporias in his thinking, including his oversight of the historical genealogy of local cultures in Philippine vernacular literature, folklore, ecology, and mass media. He ends by reiterating the need to develop the discourse of critique in the hope of re-inscribing the ideal kingdom of the Categorical Imperative into the immanent adventure of humanity in its reflexive history.
Keywords
critical theory, cultural studies, E. San Juan, Jr., metacommentary, Philippine literature and criticism, race and ethnicity, radicalization
About the Author
Kilalang kritiko at manlilikha sa larangang internasyonal, si E. San Juan, Jr. kamakailan ay fellow ng Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas; at ng W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. Tubong Maynila at lalawigang Rizal, siya ay nag-aral sa Jose Abad Santos High School, Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, at Harvard University. Emeritus professor ng English, Comparative Literature at Ethnic Studies, siya ay nakapagturo sa maraming pamantasan, kabilang na ang University of the Philippines (Diliman), Ateneo de Manila University, Leuven University (Belgium), Tamkang University (Taiwan), University of Trento (Italy), University of Connecticut, Washington State University, Wesleyan University, at ngayon ay Professorial Lecturer sa Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Namuno sa U.P. Writers Club at lumahok sa pagbangon ng makabayang kilusang ibinandila nina Claro Recto at Lorenzo Tanada noong dekada 50–60, si San Juan ay naging katulong ni Amado V. Hernandez (sa Ang Masa) at ni Alejandro G. Abadilla (sa Panitikan) kung saan nailunsad ang modernistang diskurso’t panitikan kaagapay ng rebolusyong kultural sa buong mundo. Kabilang sa mga unang aklat niya ang Maliwalu, 1 Mayo at iba pang tula, Pagbabalikwas, at Kung Ikaw ay Inaapi, na nilagom sa koleksyong Alay sa Paglikha ng Bukang-Liwayway. Sumunod ang Himagsik: Tungo sa Mapagpalayang Kultura, Sapagkat Iniibig Kita, Salud Algabre at iba pang tula, Sutrang Kayumanggi, Bukas Luwalhating Kay Ganda, Ulikba, at Mendiola Masaker. Sa kasalukuyang kalipunan, Kundiman sa Gitna ng Karimlan, matatagpuan ang pinakaunang pagsubok sa tulang neokonseptuwal sa wikang Filipino. Bukod sa From Globalization to National Liberation, inilathala rin ng U.P. Press ang naunang mga libro niya: Carlos Bulosan and the Imagination of the Class Struggle, Toward a People’s Literature, Writing and National Liberation, Allegories of Resistance, at Between Empire and Insurgency: The Philippines in the New Millennium. Inilathala noong 2015 ng De La Salle Publishing House ang kanyang librong Lupang Hinirang, Lupang Tinubuan.
Labinlimang minutong kabantugan? Namangha ako nang unang banggitin ni Charlie Samuya Veric na may plano siyang magbuo ng isang forum tungkol sa akin—hindi pa ako patay o naghihingalo, sa pakiwari ko. Sabi nga ni Mark Twain: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Bagamat laktaw na ako sa hanggahang tradisyonal—ilan na bang kapanahon ang sumakabilang-buhay na (magugunita sina Pete Daroy at mga kapanahon, kamakailan lamang si Joe Endriga).
Bagamat labis na sa taning, magiliw na pasasalamat ang ipinaaabot ko sa mga katulong sa Kritika Kultura, bukod kay Charlie kina Ma. Luisa “Lulu” Torres-Reyes, Vincenz Serrano, Francis Sollano at iba pang kasama, sa kanilang walang sawang pagtangkilik. At sa lahat ng mga kolega’t kabalikat na gumanap sa pakikibahagi ng kanilang mga kuro-kuro’t hinuha tungkol sa ilang akdang nilagdaan ni “E. San Juan, Jr.”
Pasakalye
Sambit ni Heidegger, ang paborito ng mga teologo rito: “Ang tao ay nilikhang-pa-kamatayan,” laging balisa. Nagbibiro ba lamang tayo? Sa pasumalang ito, taglay pa rin natin ang pag-asam na makukumpleto ang ilang proyekto bago sumapit sa ika-walumpung taning. Deo volens, wika nga ng mga paganong Romano, tumitingala sa iba’t ibang musa, bathala o espiritu ng kalikasan. Sino nga ba itong awtor? Di ba patay na ang awtor, ayon kay Roland Barthes? Gayunman, tila nakasalamuha o nakabangga ng mga nagsalita ang aninong may ganoong etiketa o bansag, na kahawig ng pangalan ng santong buminyag sa Mesiyas, o iyong Ebanghelyo ng Bagong Tipan.
Patakara’t hilig kong umiwas sa anumang okasyong itatampok ang sarili sa makasariling kapakanan, tinaguring “pagbubuhat ng sariling bangko.” Ayaw ko nang modong selfie. O anumang makatatawag-pansin sa “Cogito” na unang nahinuha ni Rene Descartes at naging saligang prinsipyo ng Kaliwanagan (Enlightenment) at siyentipikong rebolusyon sa Kanluran noong Siglo Labing-Walo. Mahirap ipatotohanan na may “Cogito” ngang walang bahid ng walang-malay (unconscious) na siyang sumisira ng anumang afirmasyong maihahapag dito. Huwag nating kaligtaan ang matalas na sumbat ni Walter Benjamin sa kanyang sanaysay tungkol sa suryalismo: “Walang matapang na narkotikong ating sinisipsip kapag tayo’y sawi o malungkot kundi ang ating sarili mismo.” Kailangan ba natin ng opyong kawangki ng relihiyon o mas matindi pa roon?
Pangalawang babala kung bakit kalabisan o kabaliwan ang pumaksa sa sarili. Payo ni Charles Sanders Peirce, fundador ng pragmatisismo, tungkol sa ego/identidad: Iyon ay “error,” ilusyon, isang kamalian o kawalan, kahungkagan—anong senyas o tanda ang makatutukoy sa kamalayan sa sarili, sa ideolohiyang kaakibat nito? Kumbiksyon ko na ang “sarili” nga ay lunan/lugar ng kawalang-muwang, ignoransya, at pagkakamali. Samakatwid, puwedeng punan at wastuhin ng kapaligiran, ng kasaysayan, ng kolektibong pagsikhay at pagpupunyagi. Sanhi sa klasikong materyalismong minana sa tradisyon, sadyang hindi gaanong nasaliksik ang pormasyon ng subheto, o sabjek-posisyon, sa mga diskurso ko na nito lamang huling dekada nadulutan ng masinop na pagsisiyasat.
I-braket natin ito muna. Kung sakaling nailugar man ang awtor, makatutulong din sa mga susunod na imbestigador o mag-aaral ang pagmapa ng panahong sumaksi sa ebolusyon ng mga akdang natukoy. Payo nina Marx at Engels na ang mga kaisipan ay walang naratibo na hiwalay sa modo ng produksiyon ng lipunan—sa Zeitgeist ng ekonomiyang pampolitika nito. Kaya dapat isakonteksto sa kasaysayan ng taumbayan—“Always historicize!” Ang metodong ito’y dapat ilapat sa anumang ideya o paniniwala, tulad ng sumusunod, bagay na maiging naipunla sa internasyonalismong perspektiba ni Veric.
Bakas ng Paghahanap sa Landas
Sapagkat mahabang istorya iyon, ilang pangyayari’t tauhan lamang ang maiuulat ko rito. Bakit nga ba nakarating dito’t sa iba’t ibang lugar ang marungis na musmos mula sa Blumentritt, Sta. Cruz, Maynila? Di ko lubos maisip na nakaabot ang uhuging paslit sa sangandaang ito. Utang ito sa magkasalabit na takbo ng sirkumstansya at hangarin.
Tila pakikipagsapalaran ba lahat? Malamang. Hindi nasa bituin ang tadhana kundi sa kontradiksiyon ng saloobin at kasaysayan. Kaya dapat ilugar ang mga pangyayari sa tiyak na panahong 1938, na sinaksihan ng pagkagapi ng mga Republikanong puwersa sa Espanya at pagbulas ng rehimeng pasista sa Alemanya at Italya, hanggang sa epoka ng Cold War (1947–1989), sa diktaduryang U.S.-Marcos (1972–1986), at bagong milenyong pinasinayaan ng 9/11 at imperyalistang terorismo hanggang sa ngayon. Pinakamalalang krisis ito ng kapitalismong global sa loob at labas ng neokolonyang sistema sa Pilipinas.
Bago ko malimutan, nais kong banggitin ang unang pagsipat sa mga unang kritika ko ni Soledad Reyes noong 1972 sa isang artikulo sa Philippine Studies, at sa isang interbyu ni Maria Luisa Torres-Reyes sa Diliman Review noong 1987–88, nang aming inihahanda ang nabuking pagdalaw ni Fredric Jameson dito sa atin—isang interbensiyong sana’y nakapukaw sa mga postkolonyalista’t postmodernistang naligaw sa bayang sawi. Sayang at hindi nakasama sa publikasyon ang puna ni Tomas Talledo sa limitasyon ni Reyes at sa dinamikong saklaw ng mga tula ko noon.
Supling ako ng dalawang gurong graduweyt sa U.P. noong dekada 1930–35. Taga-Montalban, Rizal ang ama kong pesanteng uri ang pinagmulan; samakatwid, kabilang sa gitnang-saray, hindi ilustrado. Sandaling naging kalihim ang ama ko ni "Amang" Rodriguez, kilalang patnugot ng Partido Nasyonalista noong panahon ni Quezon. Kaklase ng mga magulang ko si Loreto Paras-Sulit sa U.P. at unang libro kong nabasa sa aklatan namin ay unang edisyon ng Footnote to Youth ni Jose Garcia Villa. Nang ako’y nasa Jose Abad Santos High School, nakilala ko sina Manuel Viray at Sylvia Camu, tanyag na mga dalubhasa, at nabasa ang mga awtor sa Philippine Collegian at Literary Apprentice—mabisang kakintalang nakaamuki sa landas na tinahak.
Naanod ng Sigwa sa Diliman
Ilang piling impresyon lang ang mababanggit ko rito. Ang unang guro ko sa Ingles sa U.P. (1954) ay si Dr. Elmer Ordoñez na unang gumabay sa amin sa masusing pagbasa’t pagkilatis sa panitikan. Sumunod sina Franz Arcellana at NVM Gonzalez. Si Franz ang siyang naghikayat sa aking sumulat ng isang rebyu ng Signatures, magasing pinamatnugutan nina Alex Hufana at Rony Diaz. Kamuntik na akong idemanda ni Oscar de Zuniga dahil doon.
Malaki ang utang-na-loob ko kay Franz, bagamat sa kanya ring tenure nasuspinde ako sa paggamit ng salitang “fuck” sa isang tula ko sa Collegian noong 1956 o 1957. Kumpisal sa akin ni Franz na siya raw ay naging biktima ng administratibong panggigipit. Kasapi sa mga taong kumondena sa pulubing estudyante ay sina Amador Daguio at Ramon Tapales; kalaunan, si Ricaredo Demetillo ang siyang umakusa sa Maoistang awtor sa magasing Solidarity ni F. Sionil Jose.
Dalawang pangyayari ang namumukod sa gunita ko noong estudyante ako. Minsan niyaya kami ni NVM na dumalo sa isang sesyon ng trial ni Estrella Alfon sa Manila City Hall dahil sa kuwentong “Fairy Tale of the City.” Doon ko namalas na kasangkot pala ang panulat sa mga debateng maapoy sa lipunan. Dumanas din kami ng madugong kontrobersya tungkol sa sektaryanismo-versus-sekularismo sa U.P. noon, sa usapin ng Rizal Bill, at nakilahok sa kampanya nina Recto at Tanada noong 1957–58 sa untag ni Mario Alcantara.
Ang pangalawang pangyayari ay kasangkot sa parangal kay Nick Joaquin na nanalo ng unang premyo ni Stonehill sa kanyang nobelang The Woman Who Had Two Navels. Sa okasyong iyon, una kong nakita si Ka Amado V. Hernandez na masiglang nanumbat kung bakit isinaisantabi ang mga manunulat sa Tagalog at katutubong wika at laging ginagantimpalaan ang mga nagsusulat sa Ingles. Humanga ako kay Ka Amado sa maikling talumpating binigkas niya noon.
Kakatwa na ang kritika kong Subversions of Desire (1987) tungkol kay Nick Joaquin ay binati ng batikos mula sa kaliwa at simangot mula sa kanan—marahil, hihintayin pa ang henerasyong susunod upang mabuksan muli ang usaping ito. Makabuluhan ang pagtunghay ni Ka Efren Abueg sa milyu ng mga estudyante sa Maynila noon, na oryentasyon sa ugat at tunguhin ng dalumat at danas ng mga henerasyon namin.
Nasa Cambridge, Massachusetts na ako nang magkasulatan kami ni Ka Amado noong 1960–65. Naging kontribyutor ako sa kanyang pinamatnugutang Ang Masa. Naisalin ko rin ang ilang tula niya mula sa Isang Dipang Langit, sa munting librong Rice Grains. Noong 1966–67, nagkakilala kami ni Alejandro Abadilla at tumulong ako sa paglalathala ng magasing Panitikan.
Noong panahon ding yaon nakausap ko ang maraming peryodista’t manunulat na nag-istambay sa Soler at Florentino Torres, sa Surian, at sa mga kolehiyo sa Azcarraga, Mendiola, Legarda, Morayta, at España. Marahil nakabunggo ko rin si Ka Efren sa tanggapan ng Liwayway kung saan nakilala ko sina Pedro Ricarte at iba pang alagad ng establisimiyentong iyon. Natukoy ko ito sa libro kong Lupang Hinirang, Lupang Tinubuan (2015) mula sa De La Salle University Publishing House na tila naligaw na karugtong nito ang mga aklat kong Ang Sining ng Tula (1971) at Preface to Pilipino Literature (1972).
Tagpuan sa Pagpapaubaya’t Pagpapasiya
Nais kong dumako sa engkuwentro ko sa panulat ni Bulosan na siyang tagapamansag ng orihinal na “pantayong pananaw” (sa pagtaya nina Michael Pante at Leo Angelo Nery). Una kong nabasa ang kuwentong “As Long As the Grass Shall Grow” ngunit mababaw ang dating. Nang ako’y magturo sa University of California sa Davis, nagkaroon ako ng pagkakataong makatagpo ang ilang “oldtimers” sa California; at tuloy nadiskubre ang mga libro ni Bulosan sa Bancroft Library ng UC Berkeley. Muntik nang madamay ang Carlos Bulosan and the Imagination of the Class Struggle na inilabas ng UP Press ilang araw bago ideklara ni Marcos ang “martial law.” Nakatulong ang suporta ni President Salvador Lopez, na ininterbyu ko noong 1987–88 nang ako’y magturo muli sa U.P. at Ateneo.
Masasabing ang pagtuklas at pagpapahalaga sa halimbawa ni Bulosan ng mga Filipino sa Amerika ng pangatlong henerasyon (mga anak ng beterano o bagong-saltang propesyonal) ay utang sa pagsibol ng kilusang makabayan doon noong 1969–1970. Bumugso ito sa gitna ng pakikibakang anti-Vietnam War at civil rights struggles noong dekada 1960, hanggang sa kilusang peminista’t kabataan at mga etnikong grupo noong dekada 1970. Sa kabila ng makatas na pagsubaybay nina Rachel Peterson at Joel Wendland sa alingawngaw ng mga pagsubok ko sa “cultural studies” at analisis ng ideolohiyang rasismo, lingid sa kanilang kaalaman ang pakikilahok ko sa kilusang anti-Marcos noong 1967–1986. Mahusay na nasuyod ito ni Michael Viola. Suwerte, nakasama rito ang masaklaw na komentaryo ni Dr. Kenneth Bauzon sa mga saliksik at pag-aaral ko tungkol sa etnisidad, rasismo, at kapitalismong global.
Sa huling dako ng siglong nakaraan naibuhos ko ang lakas at panahon sa analisis ng problema ng rasismo sa Amerika. Ang paksang ito’y hindi nabigyan ng karampatang pag-aaral at pagdalumat ng mga klasikong Marxista, kaya nito na lamang ilang huling dekada napagtuunan ng pansin ang sitwasyon ng Moro, mga kababaihan, at Lumad sa ating bayan. Kaakibat nito, sumigasig ang imbestigasyon ko sa teorya ng signos/senyal ni Peirce at lohika ng pagtatanong nina Dewey, Bakhtin, Gramsci, Lukacs, atbp. (Pasintabi: ang 1972 edisyon ko ng kritika ni Georg Lukacs, Marxism and Human Liberation, ay isang makasaysayang interbensiyon sa pakikibakang ideolohikal dito noong madugong panahong iyon.) Mababanggit din ang inspirasyon ng mga kasama sa CONTEND at Pingkian na laging aktibo sa usaping panlipunan at pagsulong ng demokrasyang pambansa.
Ang masa lamang ang tunay na bayani sa larangan ng progresibong pagsisikap. Sa huling pagtutuos, o marahil sa unang pagtimbang, ang inisyatiba ng isang indibidwal ay walang saysay kung hindi katugma o nakaangkop sa panahon at lugar na kanyang ginagalawan. Sa ibang salita, ang anumang katha o akda ninuman ay hindi produkto ng personal na pagpapasiya lamang kundi, sa malaking bahagdan, bunga ng mga sirkumstansyang humubog sa kapasiyahan ng indibidwal at nagbigay-kaganapan dito. Walang bisa ang indibidwal kung hindi nakatutok sa pagsalikop ng tiyak na panahon at lugar.
Gayunpaman, dapat idiin na ang bisa ng indibidwal ay katumbas ng totalidad ng relasyong panlipunan, alinsunod sa balangkas ng “combined and uneven development.” Ang pasumala ay kabilang mukha ng katiyakan. Kamangmangan at kamalian nga ang laman ng sarili kung di umaayon sa riyalidad. Maidadagdag pa na ang daloy ng mga pangyayari ay hindi diretso o linyado kundi maligoy at liko-liko, kaya kailangan ng diyalektikong pagkilates at pagtaya upang matanto’t masakyan ang trajektori ng kasaysayan sa ating buhay at ng kapwa.
Singularidad ng Pananagutan
Uminog ang daigdig, sinabi mo. Saan nagmula? Nasaan tayo ngayon? Saan tayo patutungo? Ano ang alam natin? Ano ang pinapangarap natin? Paano mag-iisip? Paano kikilos? Anong uri ng pamumuhay ang dapat ugitan at isakatuparan?
Walang pasubali, utang ko ang anumang ambag sa arkibo ng kaalamang progresibo sa kilusan ng sambayanan (laban sa diktaduryang Marcos at rehimeng humalili), sa ilang piling miyembro ng KM at SDK na nagpunla ng binhing Marxista sa U.S. na nagsilbing batayan ng anti-martial law koalisyon, KDP, Ugnayan at iba pang samahan sa Estados Unidos. Malaki rin ang tulong pang-edukasyon ng mga sinulat nina Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tanada, Renato Constantino, Amado Hernandez, Teodoro Agoncillo, Jose Diokno, Jose Maria Sison, Maria Lorena Barros, at lalo na ang mga aktibistang naghandog ng kanilang buhay sa ikatatagumpay ng katarungang sosyal, pambansang demokrasya, at awtentikong kasarinlan.
At utang naman ito sa paglago’t pagtindi ng feministang kilusan kaagapay ng anti-rasistang mobilisasyon ng mga Amerikano-Afrikanong rebolusyonaryo, ng mga Chicano’t Katutubong Amerikano, pati na rin ang impluwensiya ng rebolusyon sa Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, Mozambique at, natural, sa Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution sa Tsina. Samakatwid, nagtataglay ng halaga ang anumang gawain o likhain kung ito’y ilulugar sa larangan ng pagtatagisan ng mga uri sa lipunan, ng kontradiksyon ng taumbayan (manggagawa, magbubukid) at hegemonya ng imperyalismo’t oligarkong kasabwat nito. At may tiyak na panahon at takdang hangganan ang pagsulong ng mga kontradiksyong lumulukob sa karanasan ng bawat tao sa lipunan.
Sa partikular, ang halaga ng anumang kaisipan o praktika ay nakasalalay sa masalimuot na lugar ng kasaysayan. Nakasalig ito lalo na sa kasaysayan ng ating pakikibaka tungo sa tunay na kasarinlan at pambansang demokrasya mula pa noong rebolusyong 1896 hanggang sa rebelyon ng Bangsamoro laban sa teroristang lakas ng Estados Unidos at mga kapitalismong global na patuloy na naghahari sa neokolonyang bansa. Sosyalismo o barbarismo—alin ang mananaig?
Kalkulahin natin ang burador ng pangarap at naisakatuparan. Dahil sa malaking panahong iniukol sa kilusan laban sa diktaduryang Marcos at sa paglaban sa rasismong salot na sumasagwil sa pansarariling determinasyon ng mga Filipino sa U.S., hindi ko naibuhos ang sapat na lakas sa pagsusuri’t pagsisiyasat ng kulturang katutubo, lalo na ang kritika sa panitikang Pilipino. Hindi rin nabigyan ng karampatang pansin ang poklor o katutubong ekspresyon ng mga Lumad, Moro, atbp; ang isyu ng kapaligiran, ang papel ng midyang pangmadla (pelikula, dula, musika), atbp.
Dahil sa pagkalubog ko sa literaturang Ingles at sa oryentasyong New Criticism at saliksik-tradisyonal na sinipsip sa mga guro sa UP English Dept at Harvard University, superpisyal ang interes ko noon sa panitikang vernacular, sa komiks o pelikulang tatak lokal. Kumpara sa Ingles at Kastila, ang panitikang Tagalog, Hiligaynon, Cebuano, atbp. ay maituturing na bahagi ng kulturang popular. Ang Liwayway at mga kamag-anak nitoay organo ng diskursong kultural popular, bago pa ang megmall at penomenang sinipat ni Roland Tolentino, na siyang pinaka-avantgarde na manunuri ngayon sa buong bansa. Nabanggit ko nga na noon lamang magkasulatan kami ni Ka Amado noong 1960-65 sumigla ang nasa kong ibaling ang panahon at lakas sa pag-aaral ng literatura't kulturang nakasulat sa Filipino. Malaki ang tulong sa akin noon nina Rogelio Mangahas, Ben Medina Jr,, Alejandro Abadilla, at Delfin Manlapaz sa hilig na ito.
Pundamental ang pagtaya ni Roland na pinakamahalaga ang world-view o paradigm na panukat sa anumang pag-aaral ng kultura. Ito ang turo ng "cultural studies" nina Raymond Williams at ni Stuart Hall sa UK na kapwa umamin ng mga ideyang hinango mula kay Antonio Gramsci. Nabatid ito ni Roland hindi sa pagpasok sa Bowling Green State University, sentro ng pagsusuri sa "popular culture" sa Estados Unidos, kundi sa paglagom ng kanyang mayamang karanasan bilang aktibista simula dekada 1980-1990 hanggang sa ngayon. Sa Bowling Green ko na lang siya nakatagpo, hindi ko na maalala ang pagkakataon sa Diliman na nabanggit niya. Ngunit hindi multo ako noong magkasama kaming dumalaw minsan kay Sanora Babb, matalik na kaibigan ni Carlos Bulosan, nang nag-aaral na si Roland sa University of Southern California sa Los Angeles. At hindi rin multo sa maraming pagkakataong makasali ako sa mga forum at lektura sa U.P. nitong dalawang dekada (1990-2010) kung saan si Roland ay mabisang gabay ng mga estudyante sa UP bilang Dekano ng College of Mass Communications. Tanggap na sopistikado na ang diskursong kultural popular sa akademya, ngunit (sa palagay ko) mahina pa't pasapyaw ang dating nito sa mass media sa TV, radyo, at peryodiko. At bagamat malaki na rin ang transpormasyon sa indy pelikula, kailangan pang kumita ng prestihiyo sina Brillante Mendoza, Lav Diaz, at iba pang direktor sa Europa upang mabigyan ng panibagong pagtingin sa atin. Sintomas ito ng maselang sitwasyon ng kritiko ng araling kultural, popular man o elitista, na hindi maibubukod sa dekadensiya ng naghaharing uri't dayuhang puwersa, laluna ang Estados Unidos at Europa, sa pagkontrol sa ekonomya't negosyong OFW ng bansa. Sintomas din kaya ito ng pagkabulok ng hegemonya nila? Hinihintay ng mobilisadong madla ang opinyon nina Roland at mga mataray na kapanalig na espesyalista sa diskursong kultura popular.
Nais kong ihandog ang nalalabing taon ko sa pagsisiyasat sa mga usaping ito kaugnay ng krisis ng globalisasyon. Kabilang na rito ang kalipunan ng mga bagong sanaysay ko sa nabanggit kong Lupang Hinirang, Lupang Tinubuan. Meron akong inihahandang pag-aaral sa klasikong nobela nina Faustino Aguilar, Lope K. Santos, Valeriano Hernandez Peña, Lazaro Francisco, Iñigo Ed. Regalado, hanggang kina Genoveva Edroza Matute't Liwayway Arceo. Nais ko rin sanang maipagpatuloy ang palitang-kuro namin ng nasirang Alex Remollino tungkol sa tula ko hinggil sa sitwasyon ni Rebelyn Pitao (kalakip sa koleksiyon kong Sutrang Kayumanggi) na sinensor ng Bulatlat nang paslangin ng pasistang Estado ang anak ni Kumander Parago circa 2010.
Pandayin ang Sandata ng Kaluluwa
Patuloy na nagbabago ang mundo, nag-iiba ang kapaligiran at kalakaran. Hindi mapipigil ito. Pinuputol at pinapatid ang repetisyon ng karaniwang araw sa paulit-ulit na krisis ng kapitalismong orden. Ikinukubli ng repetisyon sa araw-araw ang naratibo ng kasaysayang sinidlan ng pangarap, hinubog ng panaginip, at pinatingkad ng pag-aasam. Katungkulan nating palayain iyon, ang mga pagnanasang ibinaon, mga tinig na binusalan, sa mapagpasiya’t mapagligtas ng Ngayon na nagbubuklod ng Katotohanan at Kabutihan.
Ngayon ang pagtutuos, Ngayon ang pagsasakatuparan at kaganapan. Responsibilidad ito ng panaginip upang pukawin at mobilisahin ang diwang sinikil ng mga panginoong dayuhan at kakutsabang lokal. Ang lugar dito at sa abrod ng OFW ay larangan ng paglutas sa mga kontradisiyong salaghati sa ating buhay bilang bansang iniluluwal pa lamang. Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?
Mensaheng Ipinalaot sa Kawalan
Sinabi mo, nadinig ko. Sa pangwakas, nais kong sipiin ang makahulugang obserbasyon ni Benjamin tungkol sa temang naturol dito, ang halaga ng personal na pagsisikap laban sa batas ng tadhana o hatol ng kapalaran. Puna ni Benjamin: Ang anumang obrang kultural ay sabayang dokumento ng barbarismo’t dokumento ng sibilisasyon. Nawa’y magsilbing kasangkapan ito tungo sa bagong uri ng kabihasnan at hindi kagamitan upang mapanitili ang barbarismong nais nating supilin at wakasan. Sa okasyon ng bagong edisyong ito ng Kritika Kultura, muli nating ilunsad at pag-ibayuhin ang diskurso’t pagtatanong upang makapiling ang katotohanan sa nasugpong birtud ng sangkatauhan.
Maraming salamat sa lahat ng kolaboreytor at partisano sa itinaguyod na proyektong sinalihan nating lahat. Partikular na kilalanin ko rito ang tulong at payo ni Delia Aguilar, na kadalasa’y nagwasto’t nagpayaman sa mga ideyang nailahad dito. Sana’y magkatagpo muli tayo dito o sa kabilang pampang ng ilog. Mabuhay ang sakripisyo’t pakikipagsapalaran ng masang naghihimagsik! Ipagpatuloy ang laban!
7 Marso 2015, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City--
22 Disyembre 2015, Storrs, CT; 19 Pebrero 2016, Washington DC, USA
MALIGAYANG PAGBATI mula sa “sikmura ng halimaw”
[Sa okasyon ng paglunsad ng Kritika Kultura 26, 4/25/2016]
—E. San Juan, Jr.
Masilakbong pagbati sa lahat ng staff ng KK, kabilang sina Charlie Veric, Francis Sollano, Vinz Serrano, Lulu Torres-Reyes at marami pang kabalikat, sa pagkakataong naidaos sa pagpupulong ng ilang iskolar at manunulat sa symposium tungkol sa mga lugar ng awtor na may mapahiwatig na pangalan.
Isang munting paunawa. Ang lugar ni “E. San Juan” ay hindi pag-aari o angkin ng isang taong may ganoong pangalan. Ang regulasyon ng pagpapangalan sa partikular na indibidwal ay ipinasok sa Imperyong Romano dahil sa batas ng pagbubuwis at pagkontrol sa masa. Sa Bibliya, maraming Maria o John na ipinaghihiwalay lamang sa pagkabit ng kung saan sila unang kinilala—Hesus ng Nazareth, ang Samaritano, atbp. Ganoon din sina Zeno ng Elea o William ng Ockham. Kaugnay iyon ng ekonomyang pampulitikang umiiral noon. Tumawid tayo mula sa necesidad ng imperyong mapang-uri.
Gumawi tayo sa ibang dalampasigan. Ang paksain dito ay sari-saring pook o lunan ng mga ideya’t hiwatig sa gitna ng engkuwentro ng mga komunidad ng mga nag-uusap sa iba’t ibang lupalop, sa iba’t ibang panahon. Isang kolokyum o pagpapalitan/forum ang lugar natin. Walang pag-aangkin o pag-aari ng kaisipan, at iyon naman ay inilagom mula sa buhay ng ibat ibang wika at kultura ng samutsaring komunidad sa daigdig ng penomenang isinalin sa isip, dalumat, budhi, kamalayan—ang “noosphere” ni Padre Teilhard de Chardin.
Sa isang balik-tanaw, napulot lamang ang “Epifanio” sa kalendaryo, at ang pamilyang “San Juan” ay hiram din naman sa Talaan ng Buwis sa Espanya, kung saan pinagbasehan ang pagbibinyag sa mga Indyo noong panahon ng kolonyalismong nagdaan. Gayunpaman, nawa’y di maging “tinig sa kagubatan,” a “voice in the wilderness” ang isyu ng KK. Marahil, wala namang Salomeng magdedemanda ng ulo ng taga-binyag. Baka ang nangyaring “bomb threat” ay senyas ng sukdulang darating?
Di na dapat ulitin na ang pagsisikap ng KK ay napakahalaga sa pag-unlad at paglawak ng ating kultura, ng ating sining at panitikan, na ngayo’y nakadawit sa daloy ng globalisasyon. Kaugnay ang pagsisikap na ito sa hominization ng “noosphere” ni Padre de Chardin patungong Omega. Isang makabuluhang pagsisikap sapagkat—buksan na lang ang FACEBOOK at iba pang Website sa inyong I-pad o I-phone— nakalambong pa rin ang hegemonya ng Kanluraning kabihasnan, ang “consumerist lifetyle” na dominante sa globalizasyong nagaganap. Para sa mga kaibigan dito, siguro, Filipinization ng Internet ang kanilang maipangangakatwiran at hindi pag-gagad o imitasyon sa banyaga.
Naipaliwanag na nina Rizal, Fanon, Che Guevarra, Aime Cesaire, Cabral, atbp. na ang intelektuwal ng kilusang mapagpalaya sa sinakop na bansa ay kabilang sa mapagpasiyang hanay ng mobilisadong taumbayan, Mabisa ang mga guro’t estudyante—mga “iskolar ng bayan"— sa mapagpalayang kampanya ng bayang Pilipino sa harap ng malubhang krisis ng imperyalismo sa panahon ng “global war on terrorism.” Mungkahi kong subukan natin ang ganitong punto-de-bista para sa ating komunidad imbes na iyong galing sa World-Bank IMF, MLA, UN, o anupamang grupong internasyonal.
Salungat sa cliche, huwag akalaing nasa-ivory tower tayo—walang sulok na hindi kasangkot o kaugnay sa tunggalian ng ideolohiya, ng praktika ng paniniwala, ugali, damdamin, pangarap, sa ating neokolonya. {Natural, kung kayong nahihimbing at nananaginip, wala kayong pakialam sa ganitong palagay, at patuloy kayong humimlay.}
Laging mapangahas at mapanlikha, kayo’y mga bayani, “unaknowledged legislators,” sa lumang taguri. Nawa’y maipagpatuloy ang ulirang praktika ng KK sa paglinang ng katutubong kultura—aksyon sa paraan ng interpretasyon—na siyang ambag natin sa kumpleksipikasyon ng Omega ni de Chardin, o iyong singularidad/hacceitas ni Duns Scotus, na kailangang sangkap sa paghinog ng unibersalisyong adhikain ng santinakpan! Samakatwid, bukod sa isip, kasangkot ang pagnanais, paghahangad, mithiin ng bawat isa sa loob at labas ng komunidad.
Mabuhay ang pamumukadkad ng isanlibong bulaklak! Mabuhay kayong lahat na dumalo sa makasaysayang interbensyong ipinagdiriwang ngayon ng KK sa pagtangkilik ng Ateneo de Manila University!
—Sonny San Juan
Cathedral Heights,
Washington DC, 8 Abril 2016
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REVIEW OF E.SAN JUAN, PEIRCE/MARX
A Review of E. San Juan, Peirce/Marx Speculations on Exchanges between Pragmatism and Marxism
By Prof. Paulino Lim, Emeritus Professor of English,California State University, Long Beach
The title Peirce/Marx yokes two philosophers -- not with a dash but a slash -- hinting at the strategy of the monograph by E. San Juan, Jr. The subtitle reinforces this with "Speculations between Pragmatism and Marxism." Also, calling his work a "thought experiment" shows awareness that his findings will be challenged or modified by subsequent critics, as he himself does to some of his sources.
San Juan attributes the awakening of his historical sensibility to the war in Indochina as part of the Cold War against China and international communism. The U.S. used its bases in the Philippines to launch its invasion of Vietnam, using counterinsurgency tactics (burning villages, executing civilians) to subjugate and colonize the Philippines. Mark Twain protested against the U.S. violence in the Philippines. So did the philosopher William James against the atrocities in Vietnam displaying his pragmatism, but there is no mention of Charles Sanders Peirce sharing the same sentiment.
San Juan offers this absence as "pretext for this speculative exercise." Can Peirce's condemnation be inferred from his other theories that concur with Marx's, for instance, on the nature of reality? This is what San Juan undertakes in the monograph, searching for "creative transaction" on the agreement between Peirce and Marx on the methodology of obtaining knowledge (40).
San Juan echoes the unacknowledge acolade of Peirce as the "American Aristotle," claiming that the philosopher's ideas have not been tested as "a strategic guide to wide-ranging sociopolitical action." (9) San Juan, however, does some of the testing by juxtaposing the convergences between Peirce's pragmatism and Marx's ideology. In effect, San Juan orchestrates a dialogue between the two but, despite the evidence he marshalls, he raises the white flag in mock surrended shielding the speculative nature of his project. In this regard, he is overly cautious and self-deprecating, demeaning his project with a bit of ironic humor as "a fruiful chabitation if not synergestic." (19)
To clear the path for his synergesis, San Juan targets what he calls the misreadings and misconstruals of Peirce and Marx. Even William James gets chastised for offering a cheap psychological fix: "Ideas become true just so far as they help us get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience." San Juan calls this "a feel-good recipe for mass consumption." (27) The Soviet authorities, however, gets the full brunt of San Juan's critique for "delimiting pragmatism as subjective idealism and obscurantism." (33) He highlights the Soviets' judgment that "pragmatism has given way to neo- positivism and religion as the dominant influence on the spiritual life of the United States." (35)
After dealing with many of the misconstruals of both Peirce and Marx, San Juan lays out the parallels or analogues between Peircian pragmatism and Marxism, claiming that both are universally applicable in analyzing class struggle, the contradictions of social formations, and the unpredictable trajectory of movements and revolutions. The Arab Spring is a case in point. A few of the applications escape me, for instance, "All men are mortal, but mortality is not the same for all men." (56) I suppose it means that not all men die the same way, or that some men believe that death is not an end but a transformation to another life.
In as much as the monograph is an "exploratory survey" of the thinkings of Peirce, Marx, and San Juan (one must add), I find myself gleaning from the bountiful harvest of thoughts, holding on to what I can consume. I did wince a bit when San Juan calls Heidegger "fashionable." (I spent a sabbatical in Germany studying Heidegger's phenomenology). In journalistic parlance, a few takeaways from the monograph include the historicity of knowledge and of objective reality as being independent of consciousness, the link between dialectics of Marx and Hegel, and Peirce's modification of the Cartesian requirements for a proposition -- clear and distinct -- by adding "meaningful" as a third criterion. One may of course quibble that it is redundant since meaning, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. The meaninganauthorintendsmaynobewhatthereadergets.Wedoneedacommunityoftruth-seekersto agree on the definitive meaning of the Cartesian axiom "I think, therefore Iam."
In short, San Juan's monograph for me serves as an invaluable primer to pragmatism and Marxism in one's enduring quest for knowledge.—##
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BIDEN (U.S.) VERSUS DUTERTE (CHINA): PROSPECT FOR U.S.-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS
PROSPECT FOR U.S.-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS:
U.S.- BIDEN VERSUS CHINA-DUTERTE?
Featuring an Interview with Bill Fletcher
by E. San Juan, Jr.
Amid the horrendous pandemic ravaging of the globalized political-economy of Europe and North America, particularly the imperial U.S. heartland with close to half-a-million deaths, peripheral nations remain negligible. The neoliberal consensus has collapsed, inaugurating a new era of trade wars and ecological disasters. Such “shithole” countries like the Philippines, to use President Trump’s rubric, rarely enter public attention.
For over half a century, the Philippines was the only U.S. colony in Asia—now a neocolony—trumpeted as “a showcase of democracy” during the Cold War years. Since 1946, the U.S. has provided huge amounts of military aid to suppress popular rebellions of peasants and workers. During the Marcos dictatorship, Pentagon counter-insurgency measures buttressed the exploitative minority rule of oligarchic compradors and landlords, intensifiying the chronic crisis of the backward, underdeveloped system.
The touted U.S. “showcase of democracy” in Asia (from 1950 to 1970) has become a model of autocratic, militarized governance. Over ten million Filipino workers are scattered around the world as cheap labor while 75% of 105 million citizens survive on less than $2 a day. The neocolony remains a source of cheap raw materials and market for investments, weapons, and consumer goods. Despite worsening human-rights violations, the Trump administration saw fit to reward the bloody Duterte regime with $216 million tax-dollars in military aid last year, adding to the $76 million of arms and logistics already given in 2017. With the recent U.S. pivot to Asia, and the smoldering confrontation with China in the West Philippine Sea, the stage is set for more U.S, material and diplomatic support to the native ruling elite.
Duterte’s Burlesque of Human Rights
Last December 10, progressive and human-rights groups staged mass demonstrations in Manila and all over the country. BAYAN MUNA and allied nationalist organizations denounced “an epidemic of State terrorism and repression… under the dictator wannabe Rodrigo Duterte and his demonic cabal of notorious human rights violators and war criminals…The murderous carnage in his sham drug war along with the cold-blooded murders of political dissenters and human rights defenders, arbitrary detention of activists, militarization and harassment of communities, and rabid red-tagging rampage under the government’s bloody counterinsurgency campaign have only escalated in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Tinay Palabay, the head of the prestigious KARAPATAN human-rights monitor.
With his accession to the presidency in 2016, Duterte launched a brutal campaign, ostensibly to eliminate druglords. Oplan Tokhang has killed over 7,000 suspects (Amnesty International records more than 9,000). The ongoing drug wars have morphed into the anti-terrorist wars against critics, dissenters, or any democratic-nationalist group not subservient to the clique in power. The Anti-Terrorism Law (signed July 30, 2020) has empowered the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), funded with billions of pesos, to arrest and imprison anyone the generals accuse of being sympathetic to the Communist Party of the Philippines or the New People’s Army—these two groups are designated as “terrorist’ by Duterte’s Proclamation # 374.
Meanwhile, Due to bureaucratic corruption, indifference and cynicism, COVID-19 has claimed, to date, about 8,757 victims, with 450,733 cases. Very little of the P590 billion pesos allocated for relief from the pandemic has reached the poor. Millions of families afflicted with unemployment and lack of health care have suffered as well The recent typhoons, floods, and pestilence have multipllied the agony of millions. With the numbers of EJKs (extra-judicial killings, mass murders) accelerating daily committed by the Philippine National Policy (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), we are entering a period of carnage and barbarism exceeding that committed by the Marcos dynasty, Duterte’s inspiration and patron.
This conjuncture has been appraised as a “genocidal” act by Filipino scholar Dahlia Simangan in her article in Journal of Genocide Research (Oct 2017), This hypothesis seems tenable and valid, given the arbitrary and summary judgment of suspects, or anyone implicated in occasions of police raids, as criminals deemed guilty and worthy of being executed. Duterte’s drug-war, its shoot-to-kill policy by death-squads linked to PNP-AFP officials, can be investigated and tried by the International Criminal Court after many confirmations by UN Commission for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
Internationalist Intervention
Bill Fletcher [BF] is an internationally recognized African-American public intellectual. He has a rich experience as an activist in labor union and community struggles, having first-hand experience in several labor unions, including the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941” and“Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice.
E. San Juan, Jr., [ESJ] emeritus professor of Ethnic Studies, Washington State University, has authored many books on Philippine society, among them: U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave).
ESJ: As a progressive commentator on U.S.-Philippine affairs, what do you think is the prospect for change in Washington’s policy toward the Philippines? And toward Asia in general?
BF: Both good and bad. I deeply worry that Biden/Harris will continue the provocations with China and the making of China as the big enemy. Don't get me wrong; i think that China is engaging in a number of nefarious practices, including its relationship with the Philippines and its treatment of the Uigghers. But this anti-China effort is demagogic and is a dispute among capitalists.
Now, regarding the Philippines, I think that there is a chance for change because there is no current alignment between Biden and Duterte. I think that this provides an opening. Pressure needs to start on Biden/Harris now with very clear demands. It cannot be simply the presentation of how bad the situation is in the Philippines but a demand for concrete policies.
ESJ: Trump was supportive of the Duterte regime. Will Biden repeat the Clinton-Obama support for counter-insurgency, especially the Asia pivot beginning with Obama?
BF: Though he might, since there is no current alignment with Duterte we have a chance for a change. But this necessitates a broad, energized constituency in the USA that is willing to push the issue. I am hoping that ICHRP really rises to the occasion to build such a movement.
ESJ: What is your sense of the US public’s understanding of foreign policy with regard to the Philippines in the face of China’s incursions into the West Philippine Sea?
BF: This is a mixed bag. First, the US public has little understanding of anything outside of our borders. Second, when it does, it is frequently influenced by fear and right-wing propaganda. Thus, anything that they are told that is bad about China, people will tend to believe, in many cases without understanding the details. Thus, it is unlikely that many people know specifics about the West Philippine Sea disputes but if you tell them that China is involved, they are prepared to believe that China is the aggressor. This is not a good starting point even if, in this case, China is the aggressor.
We need a higher level of analysis. In the US context, anti-China approaches are, more often than not, tinged with racism and anti-communism. It is important for the Left to offer an alternative critique of China to point out, for instance, how central China is to the global capitalist economy; that the USA is concerned not about human rights but about hegemony within the global capitalist system; and that, at the end of the day, the US political elite could not give a damn about the people of the Philippines.
ESJ: If Biden continues the confrontation with China begun by Trump, what do you think will be the situation of the Philippines as a U.S. neocolony?
BF: It depends on whether the confrontation is political/economic or military. If it is military, the Philippines will, once again, become a US "aircraft carrier" for bases of operation. If it is political/economic, then I suspect that the US will be competing for the allegiance of the Philippines. They may also try to suggest that that the Communist Party of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front and the New People's Army are creatures of the Chinese which, of course, is ludicrous.
ESJ: In terms of immigration policy, would this affect the entrance of Filipino nurses and other workers into the U.S?
BF: Probably not. The USA needs a steady stream of nurses.
ESJ: Do you see any effect of Sander’s challenge to the corporate elite in the new Biden administration, particularly in light of the BLACK LIVES MATTER mobilization after the killing of George Floyd, moves to defund police, etc.?
BF: Yes. You can see already in some of the appointments as well as the platform of the Democratic Party. But the critical issue will be the ability of left/progressive forces to build state-wide organizations that can fight for power--in those states--and offer primary challenges to conserative Democrats and ultimately challenge the Republicans (of various shades).
ESJ: Finally, give us your diagnosis of the crisis of the empire in light of the COVID pandemic, Trump’s disastrous policies, and the new global confrontation with Russia-China as a replacement of the war on terrorism. Are we on the road to new imperial wars amid worsening climate change, global depression, and popular struggles all over?
BF: Global capitalism has been reshaping itself for 50 years with the increasing rise of a transnational capitalist class. This has altered the sorts of conflicts that have emerged, though not ended them. There remains contention and collaboration. The neo-liberal dominance has resulted in challenges to the so-called democratic capitalist states, whereby there is a growing lack of confidence in the State to address mass needs. Contention within the transnational capitalist class influences the contention between nation-states as the nation-states attempt to fight for legitimacy. The US political elite wishes to be the "chairperson of the board" among the global capitalists.
Trump was advocating a go-it-alone approach even though he has major global investments and is part of the transnational capitalist class. But in order to advance his political agenda he had to position himself as a right-wing populist and nationalist in order to consolidate a fanatical base. China and Russia are no threat to the global capitalist system but they are insisting on a different role in the system itself. A more rational approach by the US political elite would be to come to an accommodation with China and Russia, but then again, if pigs had wings, they could fly. [End of interview].
Fletcher’s speculation about “a more rational approach” is made credible by the tremendous social upheavals after George Floyd’s killing and nationwide insurrections led by Black Lives Matter against racist police abuses. Surpassing the Occupy Wall Street revolts a decade ago, this profound resurgence of anti-fascist sentiment is still at its early stages. Biden’s victory is one result of this new awakening. Washington’s “rational approach” may already have been anticipated when the Pentagon launched “Operation Pacific Eagle: Philippines” in 2017. It is a contingency operation similar to “Operation Enduring Freedom” in 2002 when the U.S, deployed thousands of troops in Mindanao that participated in AFP maneuvers against the Abu Sayyaf, and recently in the Marawi battlefront. Although the global war on terror has morphed into what Michael Klare calls “Great Power Confrontation” against Russia and China, Duterte’s draconian minions are still pursuing Cold-War strategy in order to remain in power until 2022 when his term ends.
Contradictions Brewing, Prophesying Doom
Against the authoritarian populism of Duterte’s machine, national-democratic resistance is mounting. On the legal front, lawyers, journalists, and labor unions are mobilizing resources to exhaust constitutional remedies. For example, IBON, a local NGO, was tagged as a communist front by the NTF-ELCAC. In defense, it has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman to hold Duterte’s Gestapo answerable for “their malicious abuse of authority and negligent performance of duties as public officials, for conduct that is grossly disregardful of public interest, unprofessional, unjust and insincere, politically biased, unresponsive to the public, distorting nationalism and patriotism, and antidemocratic.”
Duterte has converted the whole State ideological state apparatus for counterinsurgency, Executive Order 70, signed on Dec. 4, 2018, has chanelled public funds (earmarked for public welfare) to advance a militarist solution both for the pandemic and the 52-year-old civil war. PNP-AFP coercive agencies are implementing brutalizing measures against peaceful protests of workers, peasants, women, students, and other oppressed sectors. KARAPATAN has documented 353 EJK victims, apart from the 10,000-12,000 suspected drug-users slain by the regime. In a climate of impunity, the modus operandi of police raids on red-tagged citizens thrives, utilizing questionable search warrants, trumped-up charges, planting of guns and explosives as evidence, and assassinations.
IBON has documented the 11% negative growth rate, a proof of the Philippines as the worst performing economy in southeast Asia. Aside from the 12.7% unemployment, a 30% drop in remittances ($30 billion in 2019) from Overseas Filipino Workers so crucial in remedying the ballooning foreign debt, is a warning sign. It portends a cataclysmic reckoning for Duterte’s technocrats. Would China’s onerous loans and the Marcos’ dynasty’s stolen wealth bail out the politically bankrupt Duterte and his proxies?
The Final Reckoning for Duterte?
Recently, the International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that there is now “a reasonable basis” to indict Duterte for crimes against humanity: torture, murder, serious physical injury, mental harm during detention or imprisonment, etc. (Rappler, 15 December 2020),
Filipina investigative journalist Sheila Coronel described the suppression of Rappler and ABS-CBN network as testimony to “the erosion of democratic norms, the corruption of institutions, and the cowardly compromises of decision-makers in courts and congresses” (The Atlantic, 16 June 2020). Media accounts have documented the affinities between Duterte’s death-squads and Trump’s transgression of “the norms of democratic poitics and contentional decency.” They join the worldwide trend of autocratic usurpation of power in Hungary, Turkey, India, Brazil, among others. Historian Alfred McCoy analyzed Duterte’s populilst posture as rooted in the lust for exhibitionist violence refined in 26-years of wiping out opponents as mayor of Davao City. McCoy argues that Duterte manipulates “performative violence” to project domestic strength together with international diplomacy. But his “de facto abrogation” of Philippine “claims to the South China Sea’s rich fishing grounds and oil reserves could risk a popular backlash, a military coup, or both” (Surveillance & Society 15, 2017).
Last year, David Timberman observed that Duterte’s impunity and personalistic leadership have damaged the rule of law and democratic institutions. But he concludes that as long as Washington prioritizes “strategic and security interests” in revising foreign policy, nothing much will change unless the masses seize the initiative to shape their own destiny. But surely the Filipino people’s durable tradition of counterhegemonic revolution needs no such reminder from Establishment gurus.—###
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E. San Juan, Jr. was recently a visiting professor at the University of the Philippines. His latest books are Between Empire and Insurgency (U.P. Press); Faustino Aguilar: Metakomentaryo (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House); and Carlos Bulosan: Revolutionary Filipino Writer in the U.S. (Peter Lang).
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TUNGKOL SA NOBELA NI LUALHATI BAUTISTA, DESAPARESIDOS
DESAPARESIDOS ni Lualhati Bautista: Ideolohiya, Praktika, Rebolusyon
Isang Metakomentaryo ni
E. San Juan, Jr.
Professorial Lecturer, Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Pambungad
Sa unang malas, umaayaw na o natatabangan ang marami sa pagkasulyap sa salitang "ideolohiya." Ano ba ito, propaganda o chika tungkol sa politika na hindi bagay sa okasyong itong pagsunod sa binagong K-12 curriculum. Kung inyong nabasa ang Batas at Memo ni Dir. Licuanan, nais daw hasain ang estudyante sa kritikal at malikhaing pag-iisip upang itransporma ang sarili at kapaligiran. Naku, bigating layunin ito. Idiniin din na kailangan daw iakma o iayon ang turo't aralin sa global istandard (tingnan ang Department of Education Webpage).
Isa sa required reading sa mga kolehiyo sa Europa & mga bansa sa Aprika at Amerika ang The German Ideology nina Marx at Engels. Tiyak na alam ng lahat na bawal ang komunistang lathalai't usapan sa mga klasrum, laluna sa panahon ng "Cold War." Tapos na ito sa buong mundo, pero patuloy pa rin tayo sa mentalidad ng pagbabawal (San Juan, U.S. Imperialism). Kung sa bagay, ngayon ang panahon ng "total surveillance,"& hanggang ngayon, ang premyadong pelikulang "Orapronobis" ni Lino Brocka ay hindi pinahihintulutang maipalabas sa publiko.
Sa ano't anuman, ang "ideolohiya" ay salitang laganap na sa iba't ibang sangay ng aralin sa humanidades at siyensiyang sosyal. Hindi na dapat pagtalunan kung bakit mahalagang siyasatin ang kaugnayan nito sa pagtuturo. Halimbawa na nga ang inyong pagtaka o pagkamangha, kung nangyari nga, sa paglitaw nito sa programa.
Isa pang halimbawa: Malimit nating pasalamatan ang mga burokratang upisyal sa pagtustos sa pagpupulong tulad nito. Sa katunayan, ang dapat pasalamatan ay mga manggagawa, magbubukid at empleyadong tulad ninyo na siyang yumayari ng kayamanan ng bansa. Ang lakas-paggawa ng karaniwang mamamayan ang nagbubuwis ng halaga upang mangyari ang miting na ito, kaya sa kanila ang pasasalamat natin--hindi sa mga politiko at kanilang "pork-barrel" na nakaw sa pagod ng mga anak-pawis, bukal ng anumang kabihasnan.
Pagkakaiba ng Indibidwal at Sabjek
Sa gayon, ang ideolohiya ay hindi lamang pumapatnubay na ideya o paniniwala kundi kilos, gawi, praktika. Ito'y mga institusyong siyang gumagawa ng sabjek sa bawat indibidwal (Eagleton). Ang sabjek ang siyang aktor na kinikilala, nagpapasiya, kumikilos, may pananagutan.
Makikita sa relasyon ng titser at estudyante: "Hoy, makinig kayo!" giit ng guro. Awtoridad ang titser, kinatawan ng Estado at siyang nagdedeposito ng kaalaman sa basyong utak ng mga kabataan. Ito ang "banking method" ng edukasyon na tinuligsa ni Paulo Freire. Galing ito sa mahabang karanasan natin sa disiplinang pedagohikal ng kolonyalismong Espanyol at Amerikano.
Sa pagsakop ng ekonomiyang nakaangkla sa "exchange value" ng trabaho, wikang Ingles ang instrumento sa paghulma ng sabjek ng malayang pamilihan--ipagbili ang lakas-paggawa kung may bibili. Bagamat ang hangarin ng makabagong sistema ay indibidwal na may nagsasariling katwiran ("autonomous rational mind," naisaad ni Immanuel Kant), kaiba ang resulta: ginagawang masunuring sabjek ang indibidwal sa posisyon niya sa istruktura ng lipunan.
Ang lipunan ay katumbas sa ugnayan o relasyon ng mga sabjek. Hindi ito kumpol lamang ng hiwa-hiwalay na inbidwal. Bawat identidad/kaakuhan--halimbawa, sabjek bilang awtor, mambabasa, guro, atbp.--ay nabubuo lamang sa loob ng ugnayang panlipunan. Samakatuwid, ang sabjek ay produkto ng pagkilala, pagtawag, interpelasyon ng diskurso, praktika, institusyon.
Hindi kaakuhan/identidad ng awtor ang pinagmumulan ng kahulugan ng akda. Iyon ay bunga ng diskurso, ng tekstong binubuo ng magkasalungatang puwersang nagsusulong sa kasayaysan. Ang indibidwal ay ginagawang sabjek ng wika sa diskursong gamit ng mga institusyong ideolohikal (primaryang referens dito sina Balibar at Macherey; konsultahin din si Althusser).
Makapangyarihan ang asignatura sa panitikang Filipino sa paglalantad ng sitwasyon kung saan ang wikang Ingles ay dominante pa rin, tanda ng poder ng modernisadong oligarkiya, na bunyag nga sa paggamit ng "mother tongue" sa unang baytang ng iskwela. Pahiwatig na sa kompitensiya ng wika, nananaig pa rin ang poder ng bangko't korporasyong global ng U.S., Europa, Hapon, at sirkulo ng industriyalisadong bansa. Ang poder ay naisakatawan sa wikang Ingles, o sa mga "englishes," na bumubuhay sa gahum o hegemonya nito sa buong daigdig (Lecercle; San Juan, Toward Filipino Self-Determination).
Sa pamamagitan ng mga institusyon at operasyong praktikal nito, kinikilalang sabjek ang sinuman upang makaganap ng takdang tungkulin sa isang tiyak na lugar sa kasaysayan ng lipunan. Gayundin ang awtor: batay sa institusyonalisadong praktika, ang identidad ng awtor at gawa niya ay nakasalig sa pagtawag at pagkilala sa kanya ng namamayaning pananaw--ang normatibong paniniwalang operasyonal sa gawi, batas, atbp. kung saan nakasandig ang kapangyarihan ng dominanteng uri sa hinating lipunan.
Perspektiba ng Materyalismong Pangkasaysayan
Walang sitwasyon na permanente sa kasaysayan. Lapatan natin ng historikal na panimbang ang pabago-bagong pagtingin sa awtor at akdang itinuturo natin (ikompara ang mga punto-de-bistang itinala ni Reyes sa Kritisismo).
Namihasa tayong ipalagay na ang isang akda ay bunga ng henyo o talino ng awtor. Iba noong sinaunang panahon: ang awtor ng epiko, korido, pasyon, atbp. ay kabilang sa pangkat na naglilingkod sa lider ng tribu, ng simbahan o aristokrasya (tulad ni Balagtas). Ginagabayan sila ng kombensiyon, determinadong kodigo, at panuntunang institusyonal.
Nag-iba ito paglipas ng Renaissance; tuluyang humiwalay ang artisano't naging negosyante ng kanyang dunong sa sinumang bibili nito. Malaya na siya sa malas, pero alipin naman ng pamilihan. Ganito pa rin ang sitwasyon ng awtor o sinumang intelektwal (guro, peryodista, atbp) na walang pag-aari ng kailangang kagamitan upang mabuhay.
Noong ika-19 siglo, umaklas ang mga artista laban sa burgesyang orden ng kapitalismong industriyal. Batay sa romantikong pananaw, ang awtentikong galing ng manunulat ay tiwalag sa burgesyang lipunan at indibidwalistikong pamantayan nito. Itinuring na doon nagmumula ang kahulugan at katuturan ng akda. Kalaunan, pinatingkad ito ng ideolohiya ng sistemang kapitalismo, bagamat ang normatibong mapang-angkin ay tinuligsa nina Flaubert, Zola, Dostoevsky, Gorki, Dreiser, Hemingway, atbp.
Ang rebelyon nina Villa, Abadilla, Amado Hernanez, at mga modernistang sumunod ay sintomas ng krisis ng sitwasyon ng petiburgesyang intelektwal sa neokolonyang predikamentong tumitingkad at lumalala ngayon.
Sa pagsipat at pagkilatis ng diskurso, mapapansin na impluwensiyal pa rin ang klasikong pamantayan nina Regalado, Balmaseda, Panganiban: ang "dulce et utile" ni Horace pinatining ng romantikong ideyalismo. Nitong dekada 70 at 80 pumasok ang formalismo, feminismo, istrakturalismo't iba pang tatak postmodernistang perspektibo, sa neoliberalismong bandila ng "end of ideology" o tandisang tagumpay ng kapitalismo pagbulusok ng Unyon Sobyet at alternatibong radikal.
Diyalektikang Paghimay at Pagpapakahulugan
Tatlong lapit ang resulta ng panunuring sintomatika.
Una, ang didaktikong motibasyon: birtud ng literatura ang pumukaw ng diwa o damdamin at magbigay ng aral na mapapakinabangan. Masisinag ang utilitaryanismong ugit sa dokumentong nabanggit. Pangalawa, ang empirisistikong hilig na sa reyalistikong pamamaraan nailalahad ng akda ang katotohanan, tiwalag sa anumang paniniwalang moral o etikal ng awtor. Pangatlo, aliw ang dulot ng ayos o porma ng sining; kariktan o kagandahan ang mahalagang katangian nito para sa esklusibo't sopistikadong sensibilidad.
Matatarok na sintomas ito ng kontradiksiyon ng mga grupo sa lipunan: ang awtoridad ng mga naghaharing uring may mala-pyudal na pangitain, laban sa komprador-burokratang saray na tutok sa pamantayang global at siyentipikong pamantayan. May panggitnang oryentasyon din.
Ngunit hinahanap pa, dili kaya'y hinihitay pa, ang pagtinging sumasalungat ng mga nakararami, ang interpretasyong nagsisiwalat ng pagtatagisan ng samutsaring sektor ng lipunan at pagkakabuhol ng mga ito. Sa madaling salita, ang katotohanan ng kasalukuyan sitwasyon at kalakaran ng tunggalian ng mga uri.
Batay sa kuro-kurong naisaad, atupagin natin ang pangunahing tanong: Sa tawag ng nobela ni Bautista (Desaparesidos, 2006), anong sabjek ang nabubuo mula sa karanasan ng pagbasa? Upang matugon ito, marahil dapat usisain muna ang ating sitwasyon at kinalalagyan. Anong kondisyon ng ating lipunan sa ngayon? Bilang guro at estudyante, saan tayo nakapwesto sa kasalukuyang krisis ng kapitalismong global at alitang rehiyonal? Ano ang tungkulin natin sa institusyong inutusan ng Estado na hubugin ang isip at damdamin ng kabataan? Para sa anong layon o adhikain?
Sipat, Kilatis at Timbang
Ang literaturang itinuturo ay isang sangay ng kabihasnan na kagamitan sa paghulma ng isip at kilos ayon sa dominanteng pangitain ng namumunong uri. Anong pangitain ang gumagana't nanaig?
Indibidwalismong makapamilya o makauri ang istandard, hinaluan ng ilang demokratikong islogan. Inatasan ang guro upang itanim sa utak at puso ang indibidwalismong makasarili kaagapay ng pagsunod sa batas. Hindi bulgar na pangungurakot sapagkat may kaunting aral tungkol sa pakikipagkapwa-tao at pagtulong o pagdamay sa di-kamag-anak, at pagmamahal sa bansa.
Sa tradisyonal na ugali, idinidiin ng guro ang aral o ulirang halimbawang mahuhugot sa tula, kuwento, nobela, dula na magsisilbing gabay sa araw-araw na pamumuhay.
Sa ganitong pagtingin, ang guro ay gumaganap ng papel ng isang awtoridad, tulad ng pulis o pari. Masunuring estudyante, hindi nagtatanong—ito ba ang hangad natin? Hindi ba kabaligtaran iyon ng nais natin: isang responsableng taong may sariling pangangatwiran? Paano maitatanim at mapapaunlad ang kakayahang mag-isip nang walang alalay, ang maging taong taglay ang kasarinlan at rasong independiyente (autonomous reason) na ideal ng demokrasyang orden, hindi diktadurya o pasistang sosyedad?
Ang panitikan ay produkto ng mga kontradiksiyong sosyal at siya ring nagpapaulit-ulit nito. Hindi nasa tinig ng diwa o guniguni ang kahulugan ng akda, kundi nasa pag-antig o pagpukaw ng saloobing nakatugma sa polarisasyon ng mga tauhan at pangyayari. Ang akda ay hindi ekspresyon ng nangungulilang diwa o malay kundi artikulasyon ng senyas o salitang taglay ang magulo't maligalig na ugnayan ng bawat tao sa lipunan.
Sa retorika ng teksto at pagbabalangkas ng naratibo, nakalilikha ng posisyon para sa mga sabjek na kumakatawan sa sistemang nabibiyak, tigib ng nakabibighaning katangian. Ang matingkad na karanasan o reyalidad ay bunga ng diskurso na humuhudyat o tumatawag sa atin upang makisangkot o lumahok sa tunggalian ng mga lakas (taglay ang ilang analohiya sa karanasan ng mismong awtor, ayon sa testimonyo niyang ibinahagi kay Rose Torres-Yu).
Bumungad sa dalumat ang interogasyon o interpelasyon ng akda. Saan tayo lalagay? Saan tayo papanig, saan makikisanib?
Mula Teksto hanggang Kontekstong Historikal
Paano susuriin ang ideolohiyang hugis o banghay ng nobela ni Bautista?
Sa biglang sipat, mahihinuha na iyon ay nakasalig sa makatotohanang dating at epekto ng tila-realistikong detalye ng paglalarawan, laluna ang eksena ng tortyur, ng maramdaming pagtatalik nina Ana at Roy, atbp. Hindi kailangang magduda na peke o eksaherasyon ang mga pangyayari. Matalas at masinop ang paglalarawan ng malagim na karanasan na nakasentro sa mga rebolusyonaryong Ana, Roy, Karla, Jingki, at kanilang pamilya. Ano ang hinihiling sa atin? Ano ang demanda ng nasubaybayang eksena't pangyayari?
Nakaaantig ang pagsisiwalat ng matinding kahirapan ng mga aktibista, ng mabangis na kalupitan ng mga sundalo ng diktaturya, ng matinding galit at kalungkutang sinapit ng mga protagonista. Taglay ng akda ang makasaysayang kakintalang mahirap iwaglit sa kolektibong gunita.
Ating ungkatin ang ideolohiya ng teksto sa makinarya ng paghahanay ng mga insidente: Paano nalutas ang problemang gumulo sa buhay ng mga tauhan? Paano nairesolba ang mga kontradiksiyong prinsipal (diktadurya versus demokratikong masa at representatibong partido nito) sa pamamagitan ng imahinaryong paraan, sa pantasya o nais-kaganapan (wish-fulfillment)?
Pansinin na ang suliranin ng kontradiksiyon ng oligarkong pangkat suportado ng imperyalistang Estados Unidos at mga partisano ng demokrasyang pambansa ay naipaloob sa isang kompromisong antas. Ibig sabihin, naisalin iyon sa kuwadro ng problema ng inang nawalan ng anak at sakunang naranasan ng mga aktibistang pinahirapan.
Sa sakripisyo ni Karla, sa kanyang pagmamalasakit, na bunga ng pangingibang-bayan (paglipat sa Canada) at pagkalinga ng pamilya, nakuhang ipagtapat sa anak ang katotohanan ng nakalipas. Sumunod naman si Malaya sa paniniwalang ang pagka-ina (maternidad) ay biyolohikal, hindi sosyal; at pagtanggap sa kanya ni Ana bilang simbolo ng kanyang pagsisikap at gantimpala sa pagmamahal sa sarili.
Sa kasukdulan, umabot sa pagkakakilanlan at pagbabalik ng kaginhawahan, bagama't ironikal ang alingawngaw sa dulo. Na wari baga'y may kutob na walang tunay na pagbabagong naganap, may kutob na nasayang ang pawis at dugong ibinuhos ng mga nakipagsapalaran, at bumabalik muli ang sinugpong nakalipas. Ano ba talaga ang kanilang mithiin? Ang katarungan ba'y nakasalalay sa hatol ng hukuman sa Estados Unidos, hindi sa Filipinas? Tila malabo pagdating natin sa dulo.
Palaisipan ng Pakikibaka
Sa panig ni Roy naman, ang interogasyon ng Komiteng nagsisiyasat tungkol sa mga biktima ng martial-law kaugnay ng kasong ilalapit sa korte sa U.S., ay nagsilbing katarsis upang maibilad niya ang nasugpong yugto ng kanyang buhay, laluna ang pagkitil ng buhay ni Jingki ayon sa atas ng partido, na paghihiganti sa pagkasawi ng buong pamilya niya. Sa tulong ng mga abogadong Filipino at Amerikano, ang katarungan ay natamo, nagkaisa muli ang ina't anak, at nakamit ni Lorie ang kabatiran tungkol sa madugo't lihim na talambuhay ng kanyang magulang. Narekober ang nakalipas, nabuo ang totalidad ng kasaysayan, umabot tayo sa masayang wakas, bagama't may babala na baka maulit muli ang diktadurya sa proklamasyon ni Arroyo sa huling pahina.
Samakatwid, ang tunay na problemang hinarap ng nobela ay nalutas sa imahinaryong paraan, sa paglilipat nito sa isang lunan o palapag na madaling maaayos ang lahat sa paraang pagtawag sa tradisyonal na paniniwala, sukatan o prehuwisyong bumubuo sa lumang kaayusan na siyang pinagmulan ng krisis na sinuong ng mga karakter sa nobela.
Nabuo ang sabjek sa pagtuklas na gumagana pa rin ang tradisyonal na moralidad na batayan ng kilos, isip at damdamin ng tipikal na tauhan sa nobela: pamilya batay sa awtoridad ng magulang, sindak ng militar laban sa rebeldeng pangkat na dapat katakutan, atbp.
Matingkad ang paglalarawan sa problema ng mga anak at magulang, ngunit tila pansamantala lamang ang yugtong iyon, limitado sa ilang tauhan, hindi saklaw ang buong bansa. Lumilitaw na ang diktadurya ay tila anomalya lamang, at ang krisis ay pansamantalang emerhensiya. Ganoon din ang kalabisan ng mga kaliwang puwersa na siyang nagpakilos sa mga aktibista, ngunit hindi sumaklolo o tumulong sa kanilang kahirapan.
Sinapupunan ng Transpormasyon
Sa namamayagpag na "culture of impunity," tila patuloy ang predikamento ng mga ina (konsultahin si Rose Torres-Yu, "Re-Imahinasyon ng Ina"). Testigo ang ina ni Jonas Burgos, ang mga magulang nina Karen Empeno at Sherlyn Cadapan, at marami pang iba. Baka maging "desaparecidos" ang buong bansa sa paglabas ng migranteng contract-workers--mahigit 10 milyon na--pati likas-yaman, mga islang lulubog o mawawasak sa bagsik ng napipinsalang kalikasan ng planeta.
Ang pagkawala ng anak ay mistulang sagisag sa pagkawala ng soberanya, kalayaan, integridad ng bansa. Simbolo kaya ng resureksiyon o muling pagsilang ang pagbabalik ng anak? Sino ang sabjek ng kinabukasang ipinahihiwatig ng pagbuo muli ng pamilya?
Kung hindi kayo sang-ayon sa metakomentaryong nailahad, patunay iyon na nangingibabaw pa rin ang tradisyonal na paraan ng pagsusuri't pagpapahalaga sa literatura (hinggil sa metakomentaryo, konsultahin si Jameson). Kung nabagabag man kayo, tumalab kahit paano ang proposisyong nailatag dito, maaaring simulang baguhin ang modo ng pagturing sa panitikan bilang repleksiyon ng tinatanggap na realidad o kaya'y ekspresyon ng kaluluwa ng salamangkero ng wika.
Simula ring maghuhunos ang pagkilala sa estudyante at guro bilang mga sabjek ng naghaharing paradigma o kwadro ng pagkilatis at pagpapahalaga. Sa gayo'y pwedeng mag-umpisa ang kumbersasyon ng mga komunidad sa impetus ng diyalektikal at materyalismong pagsusuring naibalangkas dito (makatutulong ang ilang halimbawa sa antolohiya ni Rose Torres-Yu, Kilates).
Pangkalahatang Lagom at Pansamantalang Gahum
Sa paglagom, maitanong: taglay ba ng lahat ng akda o diskurso ang hugis ng ideolohiyang nahimay rito? Kung ganoon, walang dapat alalahanin. Walang panganib ang magbasa ng diskursong nag-uulat ng nakaririmarim na mga tagpo, ng mga nakasisindak na pangyayari. Sandaling nagimbal ang kalooban ng mambabasa.
Sa pag-igkas ng imbestigasyon hinggil sa mga biktima ng diktadurya, sa pag-inog ng mga insidente, maidadala lahat ng mga masalimuot na kontradiksiyon sa isang lugar na madaling maipapaliwanag ang lahat, at saka maiuugnay sa mapayapa't makabuluhang paraan ang mga nagtutunggaling puwersa upang sa gayon maisauli ang dating status quo at mapatahimik ang lahat. Kung tutuusin, walang dapat ikabahala sa masinop na pag-aaral ng nobelang puno ng madugo't marahas na tagpo.
Sa Kanlurang arkibo ng araling kultural, ang genre ng modernong nobela ay nakatuon sa pakikipagsapalaran ng naligaw na kaluluwa sa mundong walang diyos. Ang bayani ay masikhay na naghahanap ng kahulugan o katuturan sa buhay, biktima ng alyenasyon sa daigdig ng komoditi at ipinagbibiling bagay sa mega-mall saanman, napapaligiran ng walang tigil na sigalot, terorismo, digmaan ng mga uri't sari-saring lakas ng nagbubuhat sa gunita ng nakalipas at takot sa malagim na hinaharap.
Sa Filipinas, ang nobela ay nakaugat sa krisis ng pyudal at patriyarkal na orden. Naitampok sa pagsasalaysay ng buhay nina Ana at Roy ang predikamento ng pamilyang nabuwag at mga kabataang napahamak sa pakikibaka sa ngalan ng kalayaan at hustisya, sa kalakaran ng krisis ng neokolonyal na rehimen, kung saan natuklasan ng mambabasa ang tunay na pagkatao ng mga sabjek sa proseso ng pagtataguyod ng rebolusyonaryong balak (muling itinalakay sa San Juan, Between Empire & Insurgency).
Makapagtuturo kaya ito ng mabuting halimbawa upang ang sabjek na imbensiyon ng diskurso, resulta ng wika ng likhang-sining, ay maitransporma sa mapagpalayang direksiyon? Magagamit kaya ang pormang ideolohikal ng literaturang pinaparangalan ngayon sa makatao't progresibong layunin? Tiyak na ito'y isang kolektibong proyekto na dumudulog sa lahat at humahamon sa ating budhi, puso, katapangan at katapatan.
[Ang unang borador ng papel na ito ay binasa bilang panayam sa Ateneo University, 14 Pebrero 2014]
SANGGUNIAN
Althusser, Louis. Essays on Ideology. New York: Verso, 1971. Nakalimbag.
Balibar, Etienne and Pierre Macherey. "On Literature as an Ideological Form." Nasa sa Marxist Literary Theory. Ed. Terry Eagleton and Drew Milne. New York: Blackwell, 1996. 275-295. Nakalimbag.
Bautista, Lualhati. Desaparesidos. Mandaluyong, MetroManila: Cacho Publishing House, 2006. Nakalimbag.
---. "Lualahati Bautista." Nasa sa Sarilaysay ni Rosario Torres-Yu. Manila: Anvil, 2000. 114-127. Nakalimbag.
Department of Education. "Discussion Paper on the Enhanced K+12 Basic Education Program."DepEd Online. 05 Oktubre 2010. . <http://www.deped.gov.ph /cpanel/uploads/issuanceImg /K12new.pdf> Web. Date accessed: 29 Disyembre 2013.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Nakalimbag.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. Nakalimbag.
Jameson, Fredric. The Jameson Reader. Ed. Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks. New York: Blackwell, 2000. Nakalimbag.
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. A Marxist Philosophy of Language. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2009. Nakalimbag.
Marx, Karl & Frederick Engels. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers, 1960. Nakalimbag.
San Juan, E. U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines. New York: Palgrave, 2007. Nakalimbag.
-----. Toward Filipino Self-Determination. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009. Nakalimbag.
----. Between Empire and Insurgency: The Philippines in the New Milllennium. Quezon City: Philippines, 2014. Nakalimbag.
Torres-Yu, Rose. "Re-imahinasyon ng Ina sa Panitikan ng Kababaihan: Isang Imbestigasyon sa Ideolohiyang Maternal sa Panitikan." Nasa sa Kilates. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006. 333-350. Nakalimbag.
Reyes, Soledad. Kritisismo. Manila: Anvil, 1992. Nakalimbag.
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TUNGKOL SA AWTOR
Kilalang kritiko at manlilikha sa larangang internasyonal, si E. SAN JUAN, Jr. ay dating Fellow ng W.E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University at Humanities Center, Wesleyan Uniersity. Emeritus professor of English, Comparative Literature & Ethnic Studies, siya ay naging fellow ng Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin. Kasalukuyang professorial lecturer sa Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila.
Si San Juan ay awtor ng maraming libro, kabilang na ang Balikbayang Sinta: An E. San Juan Reader (Ateneo University Press), Sapagkat Iniibig Kita (University of the Philippines Press), Tinik sa Kaluluwa; Rizal In Our Time (Anvil Publishing), Alay Sa Paglikha ng Bukang-Liwayway (Ateneo University Press), Salud Algabre (University of San Agustin Publishing House), Balikbayang Mahal: Passages from Exile, Sutrang Kayumanggi & Bukas Luwalhating Kay Ganda (amazon.com), Ulikba (UST Publishing House) at Kundiman sa Gitna ng Karimlan (U.P. Press).
Inireprint kamakailan ng U.P. Press ang kalipunan ng mga panunuring pampanitikan niya. Toward a People’s Literature. Inilathala ng Lambert Academic Publishing Co., Saarbrucken, Germany, ang kanyang Critical Interventions: From Joyce and Ibsen to Peirce and Kingston, kasunod ng In the Wake of Terror (Lexington) at US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave). Ang pinakabagong libro niya ay: Ambil (Philippines Research Center), Lupang Hinirang, Lupang Tinubuan (De La Salle University Publishing House) at Between Empire and Insurgency: The Philippines n the New Millennium (University of the Philippines Press).--###
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ANG TAGUMPAY NI MARIA LORENA BARROS
ANG TAGUMPAY NI MARIA LORENA BARROS
[18 MARSO 1948-23 MARSO 1976]
Tulang pagpupugay ni E. San Juan, Jr.
Punglong sumabog--
Simbuyo ng paghihimagsik!
Ipinagkaloob mo ang iyong metalikong kaluluwa
sa dapog ng rebolusyon
Di kailangan ang uling ng pagdadalamhati
Di dapat mamighati
Tilamsik ng dugo
Sa sugatang himaymay ng iyong dibdib umapoy, sumigid
Ang umaasong adhika:
Kaluluwa mo'y masong dudurog sa tanikala ng kadiliman
Sumagitsit, napugnaw--
Sa lagim ng iyong pagkatupok, titis ng hininga mo'y
Di tumirik, di nagsaabo....
Ang pasiya mong lumaban ay nagbaggang tinggang umagnas, lumusaw sa anumang
balakid.
Kailangang magpatigas
Dapat maging bakal--
Hindi ginto o pilak--
Ang kaluluwa upang sa sumusugbang lagablab ng pag-usig sa kabuktutan
Pandayin ang katawan ng ating pagnanais
Pandayin ang pinakamimithing kalayaan
Pandayin ang liwanag ng kinabukasan.
[Mula sa E. San Juan, ALAY SA PAGLIKHA NG BUKANG-LIWAYWAY (Ateneo University Press, 2000, p. 49; unang nailathala sa koleksiyon ni E. San Juan, KUNG IKAW AY INAAPI, 1983].
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