I Refuse to be Whitened

But that doesn’t seem to matter a lot these days, especially once I set foot inside any kind of store that sells skin-related products.

Yesterday, after we went out for a small family get-together, I asked to be dropped off at a department store. It wasn’t late yet, but since it was a Sunday night and my eleven month-old nephew was getting restless, I had to rush while the car went around the building, waiting for me to finish.

Now I generally stick to certain facial products once I’ve discerned that I am, as we call it in our mother tongue, “hiyang” to these. Other than excessive oil, I don’t have an urgent skin concern, and acne only bothers me when I’m stressed, approaching the time of the month, or (and this is most often the reason), sleep-deprived.

In fact, the last is the reason that my face has only started to recover from a new deluge of small pimples on my chin and a few on my right cheek. Thankfully, a friend recommended a BB cream from a certain well-known brand –one which is infamous for its whitening products. Hearing its name, I balked, but my friend assured me that they have a BB cream that isn’t meant to whiten skin, and that the formulation of their product is of the highest quality.

Eager to cater to both my skin care concerns (read: the first being skin-care pertaining to the ritual of washing, toning, and moisturizing and the second being blemish-control), I walked into the store last night with the recommended item already added to my usual mental list of toiletry must-have’s.

However, once I got to the shelf where the recommended product under this brand was displayed, I was a little confused because there were only two variations of the product: one for anti-aging and one for whitening, which annoyed me because I was interested in either; I thought, didn’t they have one that was just BB cream, full-stop?

Of course, it’s easy to point out given what I believe about the politics of whitening and how much people are willing to underestimate the gravity of politics behind the symbolism attached to black versus white, that I should’ve gotten the former. After all, logically speaking, it would be best to use anti-aging products early on, as a preventive measure. But then, I argued with myself, age-wise, I don’t feel the need to use any products of this kind; I also don’t believe that beauty is inversely proportional with age.

I looked at the other variation. It said it was for whitening. Then again, I argued with myself, I’m not exactly morena (a point on which, I am sure, patrons of whitening products would be eager to point out that “Hindi ka naman maitim kaya ang dali para sa’yo na sabihing mali ang magpaputi,” thereby with one stone diminishing the entire principle upon which the pro-woman and anti-imperialist sentiment is founded). In fact, in my family, I have the lightest skin tone and have often had to tell people that I am neither Japanese, Chinese, nor Korean —  so what difference would it make if I used one tube of this product?

So in the end, I settled for the whitening variant. However, once I got home and examined the tube, I was dismayed with myself — and simultaneously, might I add, with the whole system itself — because the product promised to work its whitening magic from the inside out, and it was this promise, with its biological implications, that really irked me. I was  annoyed with myself for being so caught up in making sure that my family wouldn’t have to wait too long for me, that I didn’t pick the other variant, as that now seemed the perfect choice

Still, when it comes down to it, I don’t really want that one, either. I mean, can’t a woman have all the other healthy-skin benefits associated with the brand without the promise of whiter skin or the call to the new fountain of youth?

Truth be told, it’s this kind of system that irritates me, for it is an ingenious and insidious marketing decision both, to assume that consumers will only want either of the two — anti-aging or whitening. Of course, as with many things these days, it’s a numbers game, and a vicious cycle, too. If more consumers seem to demand certain effects X and Y from a particular Brand A, why then of course Brand A complies, and via advertising, creates more demand.

More importantly, what offends me about the politics of it, is that it leaves you and me with little choice between what skin-care products we can buy. I dream of the day when I can once again walk into a store and not have to painstakingly go through every product lining the shelf in search for something that isn’t trying to convince me to become brighter, whiter, and therefore, it implies, better.

Where did this idea come from, I wonder, that every skin-related product for women has to have a whitening effect — to the point that even our “intimate areas” need to be given the same attention?

And not only women, but men, are being subjected to this whitening phenomenon! To what end? I don’t know. Right now, pressed for money (I have a strict budget for what I am allowed to spend on toiletries and makeup), I’ve already decided to use the BB cream I bought (and yes, in case you are curious, sans whatever whitening effect it promises to give my already light skin, it does go on as smoothly as promised and is better than other creams I’ve tried). I cannot wait until it runs out, however, so that I can start patronizing the other variant indefinitely — or, that is, until (yes, critical thinking and hope are not mutually exclusive, it seems) a third option (neither anti-aging or whitening) becomes available.

–

One may wonder why I didn’t mention the brand name (although it is glaringly obvious). To which I will only say: but that is besides the point.

Almost Speechless. But Not Quite.

Hindi lamang galit ang nararamdaman ko, kundi panririndi sa mga taong hindi kaya — o ‘di kaya’y ayaw aminin — na ang hangad nila ay hindi ang pakinggan ang kabilang panig (na hilig nilang tawagin na “the other side,” na giit nila ay may punto rin at nararapat lamang aralin sapagkat mas mabibigyan ng balanse at epektibong sagot ang problema), kundi ang itago ang kanilang pinanggagalingan:

isang buhay na may paghihirap, oo, ngunit isang buhay na walang kinalaman sa sakit ng sikmura sapagkat walang makakain, sa hinanaing ng pamilya sapagkat nawalan ng trabaho ang magulang, o ang katotohanan na isang realidad ang kinabukasang hindi naglalaman ng isang pagtatapos mula sa kolehiyo.

Ikinahihiya ko ang mga taong sinasabi na ang kahirapan ay masyadong simple at hindi kaya ipaliwanag kung bakit nagpakamatay ang isang tao. Ang kahihiyang ito ay dulot ng kaalaman na “Ah, hindi mo gets sapagkat hindi mo rin ma-gets na ang kahirapan mismo ay hindi simple. Ito ay naglalaman ng mga pag-aalala na babalot sa’yo mula paggising mo (May pampamasahe ba ako ngayon? Kaya ko bang lakarin kung wala akong pera pang-jeep or bus? Ano ang maaari kong suotin ngayon na presentable, kahit kalumaan? Magkano kaya ang maiiwan kong pera sa aking magulang habang wala ako sa bahay, para kung sakaling may kailanganin sila habang ako’y wala, may magamit sila? Saan kaya ako makaka-gamit ng Internet para magawa ang pagsusuri na kailangan ko na tapusin? Yung utang ko, at yung utang ng tatay ko, mababawasan ko kaya sa makalawa? Kung magkasakit ako, kahit hindi yung nakamamatay, kahit ubo o sipon man lang, kaya ko bang bumili ng gamot? Kahit yung generic lang?) hanggang sa iyong pagtulog, sapagkat sa kinaumagahan, ay uulitin mo lang ang mga tanong na ito.”

Dahil oo, ganyan ang kahirapan. Hindi ito iisang bagay lang kundi marami. At sapakgat ang lahat ng mga alalahanin ng kahirapan ay wala sa isang vacuum (Saan tayo umaasa ng pera kundi sa trabaho, na pinatatakbo ng mga institusyon? Sino ang gumagawa ng mga batas para mapatakbo ang mga instutusyon na ito kundi ang mga taga-pamahalaan, na may sariling sistema? Sino ang nagturo sa atin ng mga konseptong ginagamit natin araw-araw kundi ang mga guro, na nagtatrabaho sa dahilang sila ay sakop ng ideolohiya ng edukasyon?) nililinlang natin ang ating sarili kung sasabihin natin na walang kinalaman ang sistema ng mga institusyon, at mas malalang panlilinlang ang sabihin na walang maitutulong sa mga naghihirap at naghirap, tulad ni Kristel, ang pagbabago ng sistema.

Higit sa lahat, nandidiri ako sa pag-iisip na tinutukoy ko dahil ipinapakita nito na hindi ang buhay na nawala ang inaalala nito, kundi ang pa-importanteng solipsismo ng burgis.

Absolutely disgusting.

Learning, Again: On Reconnaissance

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people diss chick lit. I know all the arguments: It’s shallow, pretentious, and all about romantic love showered with a helpful description of choice branded items when the protagonist goes on a shopping spree to cure her heartache: four-inch Manolo Blahniks, a tube of MAC Viva Glam Nicki, or an eighties-back-with-a-vengeance structured party dress from Mango for a Saturday night out with the girls.

But I’m not here to overthrow those (mis)conceptions.

My first foray into local chick lit: Sering’s Between Dinner and the Morning After

It’s been some time since I last read Tara FT Sering’s Between Dinner and the Morning After–once, to sample the genre, and again, to make a paper for my sophomore year in college (Want to read it? Don’t…). To make the long story short, I was blown away, not because I was treated to the usual elements of chick lit (a modern-day city girl, the “perfect guy”, hilarious but tasteful descriptions of sex, a bevy of girls ranging from chic best friend to shy young woman), but because the narrative used all these to turn the usual concept of the protagonist in chick lit on its head.

Oops, here’s another but!

But I’m not here to talk about Between Dinner and the Morning After. Just this week, I bought myself a copy of Tara FT Sering’s Reconnaissance, a collection of her short fiction. Now if there’s one thing I noticed recently about my reading habits, it’s that I’m a slow-goer when it comes to short story collections. I either get too hung up on this one story which makes me reluctant to read the next, or I go through them at snail’s pace, always somewhat bothered that what I’m reading doesn’t have one absolute plot supported with minor conflicts along the way (as is the case in novels).

Remembering [chick] literary preference

 

So while I knew that I certainly liked the author’s writing style, I was still surprosed to find how quickly her first protagonist in “Preview” pulled me in. The character might as well have said, Here, you see, is where I am; see the meal finished, here is my new family. This is the taste it leaves in my mouth; this is what makes itself clear to me. The first thing you have to know about Ms. Sering’s fiction? It’s captivating. It’s simple. It’s concise.

I’ll refrain from discussing all the stories (particularly “Getting Better”, as I want to write about it in length vis-a-vis her novel Amazing Grace), although I will say that my preference for her writing stems from two things: first, a value of fiction that I learned but have yet managed to successfully apply to my own hopes of writing, and second, my personal context (Ah! The so-called glory of the twenties!)

I learned a long time ago that there are different kinds of stories. There are loud, fast-paced stories, with expressive protagonists and exciting points-of-view. There are melancholy stories that leave you almost catatonic. There are stories that will leave you wanting to turn society upside down.

And then there are the quiet kind of stories; the ones which, if you don’t read carefully, you’ll breeze through and reach the endings of, with an expression of complete bafflement. These are the ones that’ll leave you asking if the author really did just waste all that ink and paper to tell you a story about nothing.

And I only want to know that we are having a family crisis. That this is a crisis so bad it blurs our view of the future. I don’t want to know for sure if we will all be fine after this; it’s too soon to tell. I want to know that now is too soon to tell. But already they believe themselves to be fine. So alarmingly certain are they (Sering 24).

That’s what Tara Sering’s fiction is like. To those convinced that chick lit belittles women by subjugating them to the shopping mall or glorious office halls where the sound of heels echo everywhere in the beat of the city and by reducing them to needy lovers, her fiction will seem the prime example of why chick lit is substandard literature, no capitalization required.

The secretary whose desk is stationed right by the door of the small inner room glances up at me every so often while her hand goes on writing and her lips resist, it seems, parting from the thin, stern line they form. She checks to make sure I don’t fold the magazine into my bag, my enormous bag of folders, full of papers, full of information about who I am, where I’m from, what I’ve attained educationally, and what job I want (Sering 10).

But to the women who are puzzled as to why a movie with cars, guns, and male leads can be considered valid while a movie about a group of women trying to balance their careers, love lives, and personal growth (with a healthy mix of makeup, fabulously-named cocktails, and designer clothes) is considered shallow, this is the kind of fiction that goes straight to the heart of the aspiring young woman who is baffled by society’s expectations of her family life and is constantly trying to find stable career ground.

What I’ve attained educationally is so much more than what I want, my mother says and gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. This whole business of getting work will be like finding a small brown table on which I can arrange family pictures, over which I can put a nice vase with pink, plastic flowers (Sering 10).

Personally–and here I talk about context–it is the kind of fiction that, as I told T, gives me that treasured moment of reading about yourself, right at your own narrative’s unfolding.

So here I end, with a quote I read as I sat waiting on the eleventh floor of a building in Makati, wondering.

 When it is over they ask me to step out, please, and pick out something nice to read while waiting. I step out and pick an ancient, almost brittle copy of Time. I make myself comfortable on the couch inside the waiting room, inside the office, on the eleventh floor of the building, a building among countless, nameless many in a gray forest of a city… (Sering 10).

Reconnaissance, indeed.

–

This is probably the part where I say that I love both movies, the trailers of which I linked to in this entry.

On His Two Novels and a Story: Why I love Nick Joaquin

I was seventeen and clad in plaid when I borrowed Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels from our high school library. My first experience of reading Joaquin came when, as a freshman in the same high school, we were made to read his short story, “May Day Eve.” More than that seemingly never-ending opening sentence that captivated me, I genuinely felt that I’d finally found something I can sink my teeth into.

“May Day Eve” as published in Leopoldo Y. Yabes’ anthology of Philippine short stories in English (1941-1955)

The story (in case you haven’t read it, and by way of telling you that You Should, You Should, You Should), is set in 19th century Philippines. I can’t explain why, but I have a strange fascination with the society in that era. I won’t go in depth as to why, except to suggest that this might be because I loved studying history even as an elementary student: the butterfly sleeves, the cobblestone streets–everything that Joaquin described in that relentless sentence, I found I was quite in love with.

The first sentence of the story ends just above my bookmark

Still, as in life between (and well outside) the lines, I found that a deeper political belief simmered just beneath the sweet spell of words strung together by [semi-] colons, dashes, and commas. In my first year of college, I was properly introduced to Nick Joaquin’s views on local history and literature, and where I once again picked up a copy of The Woman Who Had Two Navels–this time, to take it up for class.

Then again, what use is it to write about a novel I clearly already love? More recently, I read Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows. The premise, I promise you, is nothing but intriguing. Jack Henson returns to Manila to solve the mystery behind the death of his ex-wife’s daughter in a cave. Between the first chapter and the last, you’ll meet characters of august political lineage, a modern-day priestess who insists on the return of paganism-as-salvation, and goons ready to run down anyone who spills the beans on their big boss.

But the denouement and the ending both, in my opinion, disappoint.

I found that though the reason behind the daughter’s death was logical enough, many threads introduced in the novel were suddenly dropped. Maybe this was necessary as, being a mystery novel, false leads eventually had to be dropped. Truth to tell, I think this is just me-as-reader being disappointed that the many layers of the myth of the Hermana (as well as other significant socio-religious females) didn’t play a more concrete role in the key to the mystery.

The combination that means a good evening

You know what’s funny, though?

Once I finished the novel, I couldn’t understand how readily I subscribed to the events and characters in the novel: how instantaneously I accepted the idea of an almost military-type pagan group backed by a politician; how almost greedily I gobbled up the myth of a cave that could cause so much filial strife and national intrigue. And I look at society now and I have to admit, I’m a little less puzzled, having now figured that these things in the novel were but hyperbolic expressions of elements we can find even today.

Because in the end, that is truly what I love about Nick Joaquin. More than his eloquence in arguing his points about history or his storytelling prowess, he possesses that inherent ability to create a nearly fantastic world within the mundane Metro that you see everyday. He’ll write a sentence about the state of narrow side streets and not only will you find yourself agreeing that we’re all turning our noses up and pretending not to smell our own filth, we’re also travelling in the throbbing veins of a city that thrives in the occult, the Roman Catholic, the morally perverse, and the generations-strong, landlord-ruled political system.

Paco sensed an unreality in both worlds: the people who occupied them did not seem to be living there at all. They denied the locale–but their denial was not the asceticism of the mystic nor the vision of the reformer, but merely the aversion of the opium eater. They stepped over reality as they stepped across their gutters–with the transient frown of the tourist, the neutral disgust of the foreigner…

One might have to eat cold rice and squat on a pail in the outhouse and sleep on a bug-ridden floor: one sighed and pressed a scented handkerchief to one’s nose and invoked the vicarious magic of one’s wrist-watch (just what all the Wall Street tycoons are wearing now) or of one’s evening dress (just what all the New York hostesses are wearing now) against the cold rice, the rank pail, the buggy floor…One smiled and floated away, insulated from all the drab horror of inadequate reality by the ultra-perfect, colossal, stupendous, technicolored magnificence of the Great American Dream.

-Joaquin, The Woman Who Had Two Navels, p. 47-48 (The Bookmark Inc. copy)

(And it takes more than a whit of wit in order not to romanticize it all)

Where Ms. Lanot calls him “Dahling Nick”

But on a more personal level, I now more clearly love Nick Joaquin because I have realized how he assures me that the stories told by my parents about their past (which, I will admit, bored me as a child), are not mere instances of nostalgia. In reading him, I feel closer to the stories my father tells me about city streets that were once grass fields, of a boy walking to school on a hot day, of a narrow road that leads to a rowdy neighborhood that boasts of two churches, rows of sleeping drivers on sun-warmed tricycles, and a Chowking to boot.

In the fantasy of Joaquin, I find that the place I live in becomes more substantial, without having to sacrifice the bittersweet reality of a history built on many a contradiction–and in my case, that includes all the irony of being part of this country’s middle class.

Nine years after my first foray into his writing and I’m still in awe.

–

Well what do you know; another non-review.

Time to Tell: On the 26th Anniversary of EDSA I

Last year, February 25 marked, for myself and a couple of friends, not just a non-working holiday to commemorate the first EDSA Revolution, but a long weekend trip to Cebu.

Tomorrow, February 25, 2012, I will most likely spend the Saturday at home. As it turns out, the movie a friend and I wanted to see won’t be out until May, and in any case the car will be unavailable tomorrow. But this isn’t just the realization that  this year’s EDSA I anniversary will be a chill Saturday, but the confession that to even think about the EDSA I anniversary is a site of struggle for many people in my generation.

The “Relativity” of Time and Space

By “my generation”, I mean people who, early-perched as the world is on the beginnings of 2012, find themselves in their early twenties, in their first jobs; some are perhaps traveling the world for the first time, or learning what it’s like to truly run out of money when one has too much month at the end of one’s salary. I mean men and women who missed EDSA I by a smidgen of one to three years. It’s a margin not far enough to go through elementary and high school without teachers showing us what was then considered good-quality videos commemorating the First Quarter Storm or the iconic, heads-crowding-the-way-out-of-the-plane scene leading to a man lying dead on a tarmac: audio-visual orchestras reaching their climax in a sea of yellow ribbons and people standing up to military tanks.  Still, ours is a margin of distance that isn’t quite near enough the actual chain of events for us to have a firsthand experience of what Martial Law was really like.

For someone of my generation to remember EDSA I is to come face-to-face with an area of struggle. In my experience, I missed EDSA I by two years, can remember only what history books tell me of the first Aquino administration, and witnessed what it was like to stand with schoolmates under gray skies as Cory Aquino’s coffin passed us by. The last, evidenced here by a photograph, presents best that irony of attending a sorrowful event, being overwhelmed by it, and yet being able to take pictures with such smiles, such silent insistence that this is a memory also of fun and spending time with friends.

At the Anda Circle, on the day of Former President Cory Aquino’s funeral

Just last year, I had the chance to interview Mr. Val Rodriguez[1], Former President Aquino’s official photographer, and he told me stories of how she had always treated her staff like family. But more importantly, he asked me kindly how old I was, the same way a grandfather who is prone to forgetting would ask a grandchild the same question–in order to contextualize his story better to someone whose knowledge of the former President may be nothing but hearsay.

At the same time, I belong to the generation that witnessed Bongbong Marcos win a seat in the Senate while his mother Imelda reportedly won more than 100,000 votes against Mariano Nalupta for a seat in the House of Representatives. All in the same election that hailed Benigno Aguino III the fifteenth President of the Philippines.

What a mess.

But I’m not here to defend why not everyone my age would be able to say anything (substantial or otherwise) about EDSA I except perhaps to fulfill an academic requirement. Neither am I here to attempt to prove that not all of us are stricken with apathy when it comes to the same matter.

Rather, this is a realistic admission that what separates us from the actual event is precisely also the same that would link us to the past. It is something which is simple, but not simplistic; something that touches on realistic (rather than skeptical) questions, and just a few minutes of listening.

Things We Don’t Know

My thoughts behind this post can be found in a noisy college cafeteria, where heat and noise and food-smoke and student-sweat mingle enough to raise a voice from the grave because hey, this smells like teen spirit. I’m sitting at a table with a blockmate and a professor[2] we both respect, and for one reason or another we end up talking about history;  a President here and there, the US of A link, and eventually, the Marcos Regime.

And there we were, my blockmate and I, and we felt candid enough, believed ourselves critical and “unbiased, looking-only-for-the-truth” enough, to ask him, “But sir, despite all the things that Marcos did, isn’t it admirable, what he did for the country’s economy?”

My teacher does not lash out on us for being so innocent. He does not bombard us with questions to test how serious we are in our statement. Instead, he keeps his hold on the bottle of juice before him, elbow of the same hand on the table and his other forearm kissing the surface of the wood. I know it seems weird to describe it as such, but he makes what I can only describe as a sad, but wise sound of assent: one that, if it must be typed, would probably be spelled something like, “Mm.” And then he proceeds to say, in the same tone of wise resignation peppered with a deep sadness devoid of resentment:

“Hindi niyo kasi naiiintindihan kung paano mabuhay noon; yung hindi mo alam kung bukas, buhay ka pa.” (Because you do not know what it is like to live each day in fear, not knowing whether today will be your last)

As always, the medium of print does not, will not ever, give justice to the way such heavy words were said. I could wax poetic here about this old man and how I know him to laugh even when he is serious; how he can strike colorful language borne out of fear from students when he says Get a Sheet of Paper, We’re having a Quiz. But I don’t want to because I don’t believe I can do justice to the way he had accepted the distance between my generation and EDSA I, and all the ways it could color our vision.

Here and Now

During the last few days, a call to different activities c/o of the youth in order to commemorate the 26th anniversary of EDSA I has been advertised by one of the country’s big networks (three guesses who–at nararapat lang naman dahil tatlo lang naman ang lokal na networks na talagang binibigyang papansin; marahil tama lang ding sabihin na ang sagot ay hindi iyong network na may mini-serye kung saan bumibida si David Archuleta, at hindi rin ito ang network kung saan nanggaling ang susunod na video). I’ve no doubt that schools in various places in the country continue to hammer into their students’ heads what an important event EDSA I was and is. Even now, countless teachers are perhaps inspiring students to write essays, make multimedia presentations, or stage plays featuring key figures in the event.

Still…I don’t know. But I feel that even though these are all well and good (particularly for those who are much younger than I am), I think my generation also forgets that remembering something can be as simple as looking around and realizing that we don’t ask enough about it. I myself am guilty of this.

One time, I remember being in the car with my father. Again I’m not sure how, but the conversation turned to  Martial Law, and my father began talking about a priest he knew in those old days. The guy was one of the number of people who disappeared without warning. If I remember the story correctly, even search parties after the Marcos Regime had not been able to locate him, and truth be told, I don’t think my father thinks of him often, except on rare, random moments when the same spell of silence that fell on my professor in that stuffy cafeteria falls on him and he remembers that he hasn’t seen or heard from the guy in forever…and that for all he knows, he’s been long dead.

This generation–my generation–missed EDSA I by what can perhaps be described by the entire concept of Time and Space as only mere seconds. But my generation also forgets that precisely because of this context we are surrounded by people who experienced the events leading up to it: mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and professors and parents of friends and oh, you understand what I mean.

Let’s make PowerPoint presentations and attend network-affiliated events yes, well and good, but let’s not forget that this anniversary is also a story, and if only we’d take just five minutes of our time to ask about it from the actual people around us who experienced it firsthand, or to look up stories on the Internet, or to recall just how much our elementary teachers scolded us for not paying enough attention to an event they themselves witnessed–then I think that makes for a better, more heartfelt way to remember something we never knew. It’s a little unfair, I know. It’s not our fault we missed out. But to not concede to the politics of remembering and its subsequent importance would be a greater fault, I think. And this one enough to shame us.

Remembrance vs. (Non-)Recurrence 

Oh, don’t get me wrong. A couple years back I hated the just-under-the-surface insistence that yet another EDSA should take place. If anything, instead of a belief in peaceful resistance or freedom of speech I think the great “Power of EDSA” paradigm is a sign of fickle democracy than anything. And to think that any revolution has now reached a conclusion would be more than mediocre.

So why do I think we should still remember EDSA I?

Because people disappeared. And they died. And those who lived through it all, they lived for a great part, in fear. Today, I go to the mall and eat out with friends and come home as late as two in the morning and if ever I have to follow a curfew, it’s a parental rather than government rule.

Because today my fears have to do with my so-called career path, my eyesight, and my finances. Valid concerns, all, but I’d be damn stupid if I didn’t admit that compared to the fear of not knowing if by tomorrow I’ll have disappeared in order to be tortured or killed, these fears are absolutely nothing.

The yellow ribbon I had tied on my arm on the day of Former President Aquino’s funeral, now practically obscured by beads and whatnot

A few minutes of remembering, of listening to stories. Compared to the hours I spend leisurely going through Facebook and Tumblr and WordPress and YouTube and typing away on Microsoft Word or getting lost in a novel–really, it’s a small price to pay.

–

[1] In case it is not clear, this links to an article composed not by myself but by Chiko Ruiz, with James Mananghaya, for the Philippine Star

[2] Roses are red / Violets are blue / Max Pulan is awesome, but his classes will kill you

Enlightenment and One Lourd

The Comic Link

Or, just Google him

Don’t ask me how–because my first literary encounter with this snarky intellectual (who would probably snort at being called such) is buried within the recesses of my memory–but I’ve always considered the name Lourd de Veyra as one inherently related to comedy, as though a post-modern dictionary that defines comedy and its related forms without the name of this Lourd must be, well, nothing less than a joke with a flat punchline.

But that’s an exaggeration of how much I’ve always connected comedy with him, when this is really supposed to be about my first foray into Lourd de Veyra’s essays. Sure, I’ve been to SPOT.ph (who hasn’t?), but if you hammered me now with questions about why I didn’t visit This is a Crazy Planets more often (Shame on you! Where have you been? Where else would you get a healthy amount of wit if not for the fountain of the Lourd?), I’d simply give you a withering look, particularly because I don’t care to count how many times I have read his blog.

This is a Crazy Mess

Myrza Sison, editor-in-chief of SPOT.ph, describes the collection of Lourd’s essays as such in the foreword to The Best of ‘This is a Crazy Planets’: A Collection of Essays from His Hit SPOT.ph Blog:

“With each piece he turns out week after week, he takes the reader on a crazy ride in search of meaning in an intrinsically meaningless world, making us thing: What do all the strange things happening around us mean? And what do they say about us and who we are? Because, who are we, anyway? Lourd is adamant about helping us find our identity, because we always seem to be losing our way. In a porma-obsessed world where contemporary demi-gods proclaim the joys of artifice on a billboardian scale; or on a more metaphysical level, where we are wont to accept things without qualm or question, Lourd pushes for authenticity and shuns affectation…”

Contents: for praise (and criticism)

And so on and so forth; if I could, I’d quote more than just that part of a paragraph from the foreword, but that would be pointless and well, pretty much illegal, yes? The foreword is part of the joy (and wit and insanity and tongue-twisting, language-effing) ride that is this collection of essays, but it’s only the tip of what I want to say.

This is me now, the girl who can tell you how and why Lourd is funny on television as well as on paper (that “Come hither and spar with me” look, his gang of potbellied, shirtless extras on his segment “Word of the Lourd,” his ability to quote literary critics while bemoaning the voice and thought process of Kris Aquino in one fell swoop), but not so much how he has become a staple in my mind as far as local television goes.

The Surprise Attack

To me, what I find impressive in his writing is not so much his control of language. Pero sandali lang; dito ko na rin dapat ipasok na hindi sapat na sabihin kong magaling siya sumulat sa Ingles. Dito ko na rin kailangan aminin na magaling siya magsulat sa Filipino hindi lamang sapagkat malalim ang nagawa niyang sabihin at tama ang paggamit o ika nga ang grammar niya (Dear Lourd, you had me at the right use of “ng” and “nang”). Sa totoo lang, nakakamangha siya magsulat sa Filipino sapagkat nagagawa niyang magsulat nang kung paano rin siya magsalita, at alam naman nating mahirap gawin ‘yon.

But to go back to a point I almost lost: it’s easy to think that language–when it is dressed in witty satire and speaking of everything from the lack of common sense in even having signs that say BAWAL TUMAE DITO and NO COUNTERFLOW to the celebrity statuses of Aling Dionisia and Jinky Pacquiao to sex scandals as discussed by the Senate–takes only one particular side. Lourd de Veyra’s writing about low IQ and low EQ bus drivers? He’s taking a stand against those very bus drivers and the management behind those bus lines. Lourd de Veyra points out to us that Kris is pointing the limelight on her brother’s receding hairline? He’s criticizing her and the media’s priorities. Lourd is complaining about people who call Boracay “Bora” and guys who sacrifice rice to get abs? He’s targeting the elite class.

But that isn’t so. If no proof has ever been presented before this (though that, too, is unlikely), let it now be known that his writing is true evidence that language is as much cause for understanding as it is for overlooking and misreading something. And that’s where the power of Lourd’s writing lies: in hitting its target without seeming to, but hitting it just the same, bullseye pa.

The best example for me so far? The essay entitled “Attack, Jejemons, Attack!” The first part of it suggests that the author has the same general opinion on people who eliminate vowels and are addicted to the letters H, Z, and X, even if it means elongating a word, whether on SMS or those strange, televised chatroom-slash-music channels.

of the Jejemons

But this is Lourd de Veyra, and just when you think he’s the swanky scholar who upholds the laws of grammar and structure with an iron hand–perhaps tongue, he turns everything around starting with a couple of sentences midway:

“One description of the jejemon is that he/she inhabits the dark and dank environs of Friendster and Multiply. This smacks of wrongheaded snobbery, As if being on Facebook and Twitter represents a quantum leap in intellectual development.”

Ah, the turning point. I’m a big fan of these, lately. The author then proceeds to remind us that language is a perennial development. Sounding almost Derrida-like (Gasp! Now I must ask myself whether that is what drew me to present this essay as a prime example), the swanky intellectual now reminds readers that the Filipino tongue of today is a bastard child (me now: but of course, a beautiful one at that), particularly of Spanish, English, and a heady mixture of what we can still (hopefully) call native.

So there you have it; I went from thinking I was finally reading an essay that would properly put into words what I felt for jejemons, when I was smacked with the cold facts: perhaps it is true that jeje-speak demeans language. And certainly this is not to ignore the fact that whether in English, Filipino, or any other language, proper grammar matters. But this was also to point out that behind every sneer and association of jeje-talk with people who supposedly hang out all day in dingy Internet cafes or wear those god-awful rainbow-striped, mushroom-puffed caps, people are really demeaning social class.

The morbid fascination of reading jeje-texts

In the words of the author himself: “But wait–what if it’s not really language we’re talking about?…What if what we’re really  sneering about is their lifestyle–their tastes in music, clothes, food, movies, television shows, reading materials, etc.?…(IMPORTANT: Every time we make jokes about how jologs someone’s school is, we are not insulting the poor student’s intellectual abilities but their parents’ financial capacity).”

So the double-edged sword: forgetting how “backwards” can easily become “progressive,” and that modes pf production are always a factor.

A Few Misses

Not that reading Lourd de Veyra doesn’t hit a few snags. There’s the ironic twist that, if Kris Aquino is everywhere mouthing an irrelevant discourse on reflex alone, then an endless foray into this phenomenon only adds to the layer of discourse.

Equal parts heavy and unbearable

There’s also the problem of the Tunay na Lalake, and the assertion that such a man wouldn’t skip carbs to maintain that six pack. Make no mistake, this is not to argue the aesthetic appeal of those things, but simply to point out that it seems unfair–to both sexes–to uphold one kind of lifestyle above another. Certainly there are habits that spell out Vanity (the capital letter a definite necessity), but to assume that the habit of exercise disqualifies someone from the ranks of being a “real man”–that smells of reduction, that it does.

There is, too the problem of vulgarity. Oh no, not of the author’s own crude language in expressing something, but the defense of Rico J. Puno when he publicly jokes around about impregnating women. But of course, which one of us have never cracked a green joke? But more publicity means more accountability, and to risk that readers will accept lewd jokes on live, nationwide television is part of the norm, is questionable–no matter the way in which any legendary singer can pull it off.

Then again, there are those who would agree, and then cap it off by saying, “Who cares about Rico J. Puno, anyway?” “Or worst, “I don’t even know who that is,” which then prompts a very Lourd-like answer, which then asks, why don’t you know him, particularly to Filipino readers. You were born long after his fame star began to fall? Big deal; you’ve heard of The Beatles, reminisce about the Spice Girls, and swoon at the mention of Old Blue Eyes, but you don’t know anything about Rico J. Puno. This isn’t a demand to go forth and research on everything Filipino, as much as it is the attempt to encourage curiosity.

Finger-Pointing

But to reassert the power of Lourd de Veyra’s blog entries (particularly as collected in this book): this is one kind of danger. Not only that it does not hold back when criticizing the society behind filthy public restrooms or the lackluster public transportation system or even the elitist view on the development of language, but that it sticks the middle finger up precisely to those who think that they uphold the best that society has to offer, good English, non-Hayden Kho fragrance and all:

Precisely because this kind of writing challenges those who are in power. And if you can access Lourd de Veyra’s blog, understand most of what he writes (even to comment on these entries)…heck, if you can even buy his book, then you’re in power.

And underneath all the kafkaesque language, nostalgia about the good ol’ days of Filipino action movies, and insistence that not everyone looks good on an EDSA billboard, if you aren’t doing anything to initiate change, well then Lourd de Veyra has two, very powerful words for you (a couple more, if you’d like them in the vernacular); one starts with an F, and the other, well…it’s all about you.

Reviewing Roots: On Revolutionary Routes, Part I

This isn’t a book review.

There are benefits, I think, to admitting the constraints of what you write so early on. The book in the non-review being the work of a mother of someone I know. So much smarter than I think I can ever be and so much more natural in the sleight of hand in writing that it seems less magical an act than a matter of course, the author is Ms. Angela Stuart-Santiago and the book entitled Revolutionary Routes.

 Probably the first nonfiction book I’ve finished in a long time (if not ever), I don’t trust myself to review it not simply because of personal ties but because it delves into our nation’s history with a filial depth so surprising, I’d be well, stupid to even try to understand it.

To put it simply, the book traces and uncovers the author’s family beginnings vis-à-vis historical figures. At first glance you’d even be tempted to think that the family members are being presented as mere victims in history, like chips of wood being carried by the tide. But I think—and this is a reassuring and confident realization both—on closer inspection you see that there’s no hand-washing here, but the plain confession that the Herreras and the Umalis willingly involved themselves in what they believed to be the fight against justice, and when the powers-that-be turned against them, I think they wished more than just to clear names or be given a chance to serve the country—

They wished to live in peace, and with family.

When it comes down to it, I think, despite the natural desire handed down from one generation to the other to serve country (Conchita as a young girl, helping serve food to men of the Battalion* Banahaw, the attempts to obtain absolute pardon for Narciso Umali that he may enjoy fully his civil rights and participate in politics without constraint), the stronger desire was not simply to be involved in the great waves of history, but to participate, in the smallest but most active sense of the term. It was not that the unit was a political entity that was also a family, but that it was a family that chose consciously to be involved in significant events that rocked not just Quezon Province, but the entire country.

That, I think, is what most readers would be able to relate to. A piece of literature, after all, no matter the height of any fantastic elements (if any) has to be well, relatable. And I think many families go through that—where, at one point in their lives they become involved in something bigger, by circumstance but always with an element of choice (how much awareness informs the choice would obviously vary, but the choice stays there).

But if the reader’s own family history has little to no similarities to that of the author’s, then what of it? Then there is, I think, the simplest and most personal touch that the book can leave you—as it did me: the remembrance of your own family roots, whatever they may be.

Which, if you will be patient with me, I will write of next. So the need for Part II.

So Many Gods

This is a little late, written and posted when what others might deem as the worst part of the issue has come to pass, but probably is only timely in my own regard, having attended the opening of the ManilArt Gallery 2011 just last Wednesday, August 24, and just now more than ever remembering a research paper I wrote in my freshman year at college on F. Sionil Jose.

Because even as I attended something that had its own saving grace(s), I know what discomfort lies at the heart of it. What saddens me most about the controversy surrounding Mideo Cruz’s Polyteismo revolves around two things: denial and refusal. When I say denial, I mean the Catholic-related denial of the fact that what we see in the display of Polyteismo is but the putting-into-art of everyday Filipino life. If we should be offended by the coexistence of Christ’s face with a penis in close quarters, then we might as well be offended by split level Christianity that Fr. Jaime S. Bulatao, S.J. himself pointed out.

If people can spend so much time insisting that the CCP shouldn’t have wasted its space and money in displaying such blasphemous artwork, then surely we can also banish all the vendors around Quiapo Church in a reenactment of Christ’s rage against the money-changers outside the temple.

Then we should be able to sweep off every single child begging for themselves (or for syndicates, who can tell?) outside the churches and chapels and restaurants and hospitals alike. Then we should be able to give justice to what is termed “the single deadliest event for journalists in history”. Then we should be able to remember what August 25 meant just a year ago.

The refusal, on the other hand, we can find in such strong insistence that people shouldn’t be allowed to think for themselves. I agree wholeheartedly that art can be offensive. And I can’t deny that the people who can and will feel offended are not faceless characters but are rather tangibly the people around me. What I dislike so much, however, is the insistence that critical thinking isn’t needed in the situation. Let’s put it this way. All right, Chist + penis = offense; is tantamount to bad art. Or perhaps isn’t really art at all.

But why? Why is it bad art? Why isn’t it art at all? What is art? Not only in the sense of the word that makes people think of the Greeks or the Renaissance artists but art in the sense of Filipino culture and history?

And to be specific, what does the penis mean? Mr. Cruz himself gives that answer, but I cannot believe that it has never entered the minds of people like Imelda Marcos that the phallus is a symbol of power. That we even consider the opinions of Imelda Marcos on art and even more sadly, on art in relation to faith, is so unthinkable, the fact that it happens speaks volumes. 

Even the Church, I choose to believe, isn’t naive to the concept of phallic power, because no matter what anyone says, no one becomes ordained without years of study, and not just in the religious field, either. But this is a society that is extremely pararanoid when it comes to sex, and extremely synthetic instead of analytic, so much so that every mention of sex is now suddenly supportive of the RH Bill. This in the light of Kapamilya shows like Alyna, Katorse, and more recently, Reputasyon, that so very few complained about, even with their premises of virgin-as-sex-object. It’s criticism that’s so selective, it’s either it isn’t criticism at all, or that it isn’t faith at all. Perhaps both.

Because honestly, perhaps it was inevitable that the Church was going to step in and rage against Mr. Cruz. Perhaps it was inevitable that the government would only pay so much heightened attention to the arts in a case like this (passive-aggressive as it always has been when it comes to the humanities). I hate that people have questioned what little Mr. Cruz himself has consented to offer as answers (taking to mind that Polyteismo is itself an answer or a response to daily Filipino faith) when they themselves have failed to question, well, their own causes for their questions.

After all, isn’t it worth asking the President of the Philippines what he means when he says that “When you stoke conflict that is not an ennobling activity”? 

If this is so, what did Ninoy Aquino do then, when he challenged a dictator? Was that not “stoking conflict”?

But of course challenging dictatorship and putting up a so-called subversive piece of art are not the same thing. What I do think is so dangerous about the President’s statement is the implication that you can allow for a certain amount of freedom and then expect that there won’t be any conflict. When you give people even the smallest amount of freedom, conflict is inevitable, and that is as it should be. And if and when you declare that someone has crossed the lines, then you must first ask yourself what those lines are, and most importantly: who drew those lines? What is the intention of such lines?

I am not here arguing that the lines should be erased. I am here pointing out how ridiculous the counter-arguments have been against the CCP. I am here arguing how disgracefully our media have handled the situation.

And I am here showing how disappointed I am at how little people can back up their so-called reasons for putting Mr. Cruz down.

Case in point, I don’t understand at all what F. Sionil Jose was trying to say when he wrote against Mr. Cruz. I do not understand whether he was vainly attempting to reassert himself in the discourse of local art (and thus coming off as defensive instead of reasonable), or just griping that in his old age, he doesn’t understand what all these young people are calling art these days.

In any case, he fails miserably because of an x number of false assumptions on which his response is based. What was the use of claiming that had he been in the CCP’s shoes, he would have done otherwise? What was the use of pointing out that he was behind the operations of one of the earliest art galleries in Manila? A person who has the curriculum vitae to back up his arguments, precisely because he has this CV, doesn’t need to go through every accomplishment.

And that person certainly gains nothing in pointing out the people he knows in the industry, just as he gains no more respect in naming “the masters we studied in school, the sculptors of ancient Greece and Rome, the classical writers as well, Homer, Cervantes all of them” when he speaks of so local and particularly historical an event in art, faith, and politics.

Perhaps I should just admit that I’m disappointed on a personal scale because I expected a renowned Filipino writer who is absolutely insistent on a kind of literature that is socially active and relevant to be more critical of the progression of art in the country. You know what, I am not even averse to the possibility that maybe, just maybe Mr. Jose has a point. Maybe in light of other art works, Mr. Cruz’s collage pales in comparison and becomes nothing.

But how do you treat an essay that starts with, “The artist who set up that controversial Jesus Christ exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) the other week must be grinning and enjoying all that brouhaha that has made him the central object of attention in the last few days” when the artist in question, the same one Mr. Jose implies to be petty, was awarded the CCP 13 Artists Award in 2003 and the Ateneo Art Awards in 2007? I don’t mean to say that we should all bow down to Mr. Cruz because of his accomplishments or renown. But I do mean to say that a condescending tone that implies no prior investigation of what you’re up against shows you to be a poor critic. And on top of that, a sourgrape that accomplishes nothing.

Can you treat an article that works on such premises seriously?

In the end, there’s a part of me that is glad that art can still spark people into debate. But when I speak of “debate” I do not mean disrespect,   nor a looking back at what the Western world has so far deemed as art. I do not mean the un-classy use of a writer’s excrement to prove a point, and nor do I mean the reminder of how stifling the Catholic faith can become in my country nor the event of media sensationalism.

But that’s exactly what happened here. And that’s what really devastates me. Because I love my country, and I love art, but I just don’t see the two together without conflict any time soon.

Or is that a good thing, now?

Covered White: Space Covered Over in the GlutaMax Ads

The thing that really pisses me off is that there is no longer any subtlety in these ads. You turn on the television and you see all those Pond’s commercials, all those installments in story-versions, the tale of the woman who gets her life back in seven days because she is whiter, because she looks younger. And the story is always told with subtlety. Yes, it is peppered with the same lie, the whiter the better, but it has enough class to veil it underneath the guise of romance, of a career, of a struggle in the workplace.

But when I first saw this blatant, really classless advertisement I realized that the skin whitening industry and its marketing has sunk to an all new low. Kutis Mayaman, it tells you; there are no pretensions about love or career, and for once even I am shocked that the frankness of it is appalling rather than relieving. Ah, yes, but take note, it seems to do it all with a rather fickle-minded tendency. Skin Lightening System, it tells you. Not whitening, but lightening. Dear reader, it presupposes that whitening and lightening are equal to one another, while salvaging whatever it can of the subtlety which is key to advertisements:

Whitening is whitening, means not black, not brown, means mestiza, means well, white. But lightening, that connotes light, connotes better, hints at a lightening of burdens, at a freshness of spirit, at being elevated from darkness, connoting problems, connoting heaviness, hinting at a phase in life that must be ended.

I am not really here to compare which whitening product has a better catch phrase or advertisement. But I am here to ask, am I the only one who sees this as a slap on the face, a real up-yours perspective that won’t even try the guise of fairy tale endings? Yes, those other commercials are insulting, yes, the idea of recreation in seven days falsely gives the idea of regeneration, god-like to women who can [re]gain career and youth and love. And yes I think that’s a whole lot of fancy covering for colonial mentality, but at least there, there is a hint of struggle, of overcoming that bitchy boss, of victory over the traditional would-be mother-in-law, but in the Glutamax ads there is the one thing that really pisses me off, which would be reductionism.

Because that’s what it does and you know it: reduces the struggle of the masses to a single thing, You want to be rich, well here it is, or at least, the closest you will get to it because that’s what you want, isn’t it? You don’t just want white skin, you want to be rich, it’s not the skin tone, it’s the hinted wealth behind it, after all!

And it’s easy, isn’t it, if you didn’t know any better (and in this country, it is, for many people a default setting not to know any better because, well, no one wants them to know any better), to think that it’s some kind of boon, some kind of helping hand, to be given this opportunity. Recognition after all, of your desire means attention. Never mind it that the real bull’s eye of education, your real needs there, suffer no recognition at all; never mind that the demolition of shanties are taken back, without any real attempt at proper housing, and most of all, never mind that no real effort is put into sustainable development because at least you have this, the opportunity to seem rich because you’re whiter, the load on your back lighter, everything else, then, is bigger, brighter, better.

It’s easy not to see it for what it really is, the dissolution of space. When, regardless of brand, the skin whitening industry insists that the space occupied by the rest of us who are not white must be shifted, it implies that we are in the wrong. True to an essential principle of products, it creates a need not otherwise as seemingly important, but is more striking (read: insulting) because it invites us to take back all the steps we have already taken while seemingly being at stride with progress, with the idea of a free woman  who can command career and family all at once and achieve whiter skin, because progress is heavy, is difficult, is a burden unless white.

So you see, it’s not as simple as it seems, not mere colonial mentality but the sheer pressure which insists that the brown must be covered over, that the space occupied by the dark letters forming words must be made into white space, a space that is not ours, that is anything but the white ink Cixous speaks of because really, what do people who resort to Glutamax care to know about her?

And even more frightening, that this industry is promoting starting young key in Skin White’s tune, Gotta start it right, gotta start from white.And therefore, what of the fact that there is an entire race that will not start from white, from where then do they start? I tell you, it is not merely a matter of rhyme or a catchy tune, because even music, wordless, beautiful music that soothes the soul, inspires words before it can inspire the wordless, before it can make people realize that some words are inadequate; for inadequacy to be realized words must be tried first, and only when words are not enough do humans strive for something more.

So it sticks to your mind, that tune, Gotta start it right, gotta start from white, and is ingrained in you, younger and younger, why not take something too, take some pill, make sure your child will be brought to this world white, starting white, starting right.

Or perhaps we need not even go there, but simply see which celebrity Glutamax chose, the one they call Gretchen Barretto. And it really must be said, she was beautiful to begin with, but it doesn’t take much to see, even the natural beauty is, quite literally, frozen now, stiff with the lips trying to be Jolie, eyebrows trying to outdo jungles and its person armed with a teleserye which is yes, quite fabulous, even innovative in some areas (because credit must be given where credit is due), but which is, again, so reductive.

That the fashion industry is so easy to get to, so accessible, that the changing hands of money in companies is so easy, that meetings can consist of this: long wooden tables without documents, only a single laptop, a projector, that the head of a design industry can be changed just like that, the audience need not understand that for a change in corporate leadership to occur the flow from human resources to administration to the management committee is a frenzied dance of anything but slow–these are the reductionist structures created by a show that insists it is realistic, founded on a realism of another world instead of the one we know.

But hey, so long as the poor girl, the long-lost sister gets out of the slums, that’s enough, some pattern must be established after all, if Gretchen plays a role in a soap opera that reduces reality to where everything is easy, in a snap of fingers, like changing social classes, then she must be the same who endorses a product as reductionist as her show. And if someone like Gretchen who has the world at her feet, with her LV bags and her topnotch show still needs some plastic on her face, some more strands of eyebrow, what more those who didn’t, that is to say, start from right?

And at the end of the day, this is the price we must pay: the country which contains, allows spaces for, that very ideology which insists on the eradication of our original space, the very few despicable kind who fights, not to exist but to be erased, to be as white: until we are white as sheets of blank, until we are white as colonial masters, until we are white as nonexistence.