now truly on pregnant pause, but elsewhere, more relevant discussions/blog entries are happening. this is sir edel garcellano on eugene gloria’s use of a real-life gelacio guillermo as subject of his poetry. and when taken to task about what it is he does create of guillermo, gloria invokes the “fictionality” of poetry. kumusta naman, e buhay na taong may malinaw na pulitika at kasaysayan ang pinaguusapan. another man’s fiction as a real man’s life? gamitan kung gamitan?

Gloria must be running around with a writerly hood given to pursuit of radical chic & grants that would spark their prodigious explosion in the American market.

Gloria had probably in mind his fellow workshoppers who would spike their texts with ethnic Filipino exoticism & filiation that would allow minority discourse researchers to put them under their radar, so to speak.

Is this the imperative of Fil-Am writing? Making use of tribal ethos & valorizing the drift toward the counterrevolutionary? Identification & skin color are not enough for one to speak on behalf of a country that simply serves as reference point.

such a great assessment of the whole enterprise of fil-am writing, given how it is celebrated as the best thing that’s happening in/to philippine lit.

The premise of the disappeared is their silence. In Desaparesidos, Lualhati Baustista’s latest novel, what one is treated to is an articulation of these silences that the disappeared bear, over and above the lives that they live as names on a list of people who have been captured and jailed, raped and tortured, and killed. And while you might say Bautista has done this before, or that this story about the Marcos dictatorship is old hat, Desaparesidos is anything but a mere repetition. It is not a sequel of any sort to Dekada ‘70, but is a re-telling of that time in history and how we are clearly and inextricably linked to it, even when we’d rather imagine otherwise. And it’s precisely because of this that it’s an important read for the times.

Desaparesidos is the story of activists Anna and Roy, a couple in the present who have come together in love for each other and nation, and have one child Lorena, who they left to fend for herself, in houses of relatives and friends, for most of her childhood during Martial Law. Unbeknownst to Anna and Roy, Lorena’s childhood was riddled with questions about their absence, and what it was they were doing instead of caring for her and their family. With no answers to her questions, Lorena slowly began to harbor ill feelings against her parents, the movement they were part of, and the nation they served. But child as she was, and absent as her parents were, these feelings would be part of Lorena’s learned silence about what to her was a family that had disappeared before it even happened.

But Lorena’s parents had as many silences to bear. Forced to share their experiences of Martial Law under Marcos, they re-live what had been silenced by their unbreakable belief in what must be done for nation. As part of the group that filed a class suit against the Marcos regime’s human rights abuses, Anna and Roy are made to tell their individual stories of lost families and friends’ betrayals, of rape and torture in the hands of the military, and of renewal and hope in finding each other as political prisoners, and as freed individuals.

And yet, even when there is power in articulation, Anna and Roy continue to be silenced by their need to forget, which turns out to be an exercise in futility. Their dreams are riddled by their fears of capture, their tears are always reminiscent of those they weren’t allowed to shed, their relationship(s) in the present always a remnant of an unresolved past. It is because of this that when they return to Lorena after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, the family suffers as well. That it was missing for most of Lorena’s life made it a silence that all of them had to bear and resolve.

Which only happens when many other silence(s) are resolved, and some of the missing are found. Anna’s baby Malaya, lost since Martial Law is found through Karla, an ex-comrade who decides to come clean and return a now adult daughter to her rightful mother. Roy comes clean about killing ex-comrade Jinky, husband of Karla, the one who turned traitor and was responsible for Roy’s and many other activists’ capture. Lorena finds herself as daughter, when she is faced with the truths that her mother and father have survived through, and upon realizing through boyfriend Eman - himself a new generation activist - that all of the silences throughout their childhood was worth it.

Moving from the era of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship to the present, Bautista’s writing in Desaparesidos seems more adventurous this time around. While not new to social realism and historical fiction, she skillfully uses elements of postmodern fiction here, with a non-linear narrative that intertwines the past of Martial Law with the present of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presidency as it is lived through the main characters. With this kind of storytelling, Bautista’s use of different narrative voices becomes believable as it shifts among all the characters, across the times and spaces which they inhabit. It even becomes important that Bautista cuts her story in the middle, to tell the story of nation in the chapter “once upon a fairytale, o ang pag-iibigang Marcos-U.S.” - something which wouldn’t have succeeded in a conventionally told story. The epilogue on the unjust outcome of the class suit filed by the victims of Martial Law, no thanks to the current President who decided that none of the victims would get anything, is meanwhile expected of historical realist fiction that skillfully intertwines fictionalized narratives with real stories of people’s lives.

And here lies the importance of Desaparesidos at a time when we are made to think that the vestiges of Martial Rule are gone, and in light of a current government that insists that many of the stories of the disappeared are exaggerations, that not all of those listed by human rights groups are actually victims of forced disappearances or extrajudicial killings. What they forget about the disappeared are those they’ve left behind - they who have nothing to gain by making up the story of a loved one’s disappearance.

More importantly, what Bautista’s Desaparesidos points out is that more than the physical disappearance of the people who are stolen from the lives they had a right to live, there is that which is stolen from them in soul and spirit. The intangible, the unarticulated, and the most painful things that are lost - time, love, family - are those that cannot be returned. For the disappeared, those they leave behind, and those who are allowed by sheer luck to return to tell their stories, Bautista tells us that in many ways, they all continue to deal with silence. In Desaparesidos, we are reminded that we dwell in those silences, too.

Other than the fashion both inside and outside the halls of Congress (which will be topic for another entry), what’s also exciting about the President’s annual SONA are the discussions that lead up to it, where once a year, media actually sort of asks the right questions (finally!). Then again, with a past SONA to diss, and a new one to compare it to, how can any show go wrong?

And so on the new TV show Harapan with Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon last Monday sat Vencer Crisostomo, secretary-general of the League of Filipino Students, and Department of Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador, face-to-face (kasi nga harapan, hindi ba?) to talk about GMA’s presidential promises on education. Suffice it to say that in this harapan, Crisostomo had the upper hand, primarily because he was faced with a Dep Ed undersecretary who, like her boss GMA, had her way with truth. That is, she had a way of lying by not talking about the full picture of our public schools.

So Labrador says with pride in her voice and a sparkle in her eyes that the teacher to pupil ratio has consistently been kept down to 1:35 or 1:36, thanks to GMA’s administration. Barely able to contain his laughter, Crisostomo responds that this is only so because the classrooms have been cut in half — as in literally in half with makeshift walls! — so instead of 1 teacher to 70 pupils, it can truthfully be said that it’s now 1 teacher to 35 students at any given time.

He also points out that it’s the logic of having three shifts - that is, three different classes - for any given day, any teacher, and every halved classroom, that allows for the 1:35 ratio to be true. In fact Dep Ed Order No. 62, s 2004, speaks of these shifts as a way of solving the problem of classroom shortage, which at that point was at 51,947. In the said order, it’s even recommended that for certain public schools, they must have as many as four shifts, not three, and the maximum number of students for every classroom is set at 65. Wait, is that a whole, or a halved classroom?

But Labrador seemed surprised at Crisostomo’s response, if not flabbergasted. How could she respond? Well, with no answer at all. So she starts talking about statistics on the number of graduates in public schools, and how statistically, the numbers have been consistent. To which of course Crisostomo responds by mentioning the now higher drop out rate, which would technically allow for the number of graduates to be consistent, because you’re not counting the growing number of students who leave school because they can’t afford it.

But public schools are suppose to be free, yes? Failon asks. No, according to Crisostomo, as there are fees that students continue to be required to pay, to which Labrador says, report those schools that still have fees and the Dep Ed will take care of it. To which Crisostomo says, “hindi naman maiiwasan ‘yon.” Because really, if a school has to collect money for a bathroom that students can use, or an electric fan to ease the heat of a classroom with 70 students, who would complain?

Meanwhile, Labrador is left with nothing to say, and nothing to be proud of. Someone should’ve warned her that speaking of truths based merely on gov’t statistics, doesn’t hold in the face of someone like Crisostomo who has a real sense of what it is that actually happens on the ground, in the public schools, that half the time seems to only be a theory to the Dep Ed and GMA.

Of course it helped that Crisostomo was not your grim-and-determined scary activist. For most of Harapan, his charm was difficult to miss, informed as it was with knowing that truth was on his side – the kind that sustains organizations like his, because it is the truth that is lived by the majority who aren’t invited to speak in shows like this one.

LFS: one point. Dep Ed: zero.

of course this president is torture enough. that grimace that she seems to always have on her face. her capacity at giggling in kilig and laughing at jokes made at the expense of a nation in calamity. and we’re not even talking about her ability to say one thing and do another. and to lie through her teeth.

and then this, a perfect example of how torture is but part and parcel of GMA’s presidency. and how people still suffer for their politics - when it’s the kind that is not one of a heckler’s, or a rightist’s, or that of an America-loving-Pinoy - in the closet and otherwise.

According to the Manila Times editorial today, the NCR director for the Human Rights Commission Dr. Renato Basas has confirmed that various forms of torture have been employed by the GMA administration. And while she has also ratified the U.N. Treaty Against Torture, the editorial also says that obviously

“The unfortunate reality is that absolutely prohibiting the police, the jail managers, the military and others charged with the duty of ensuring that law and order prevail is not among the top priorities of Malacañang.”

A measure as well of GMA’s fear in the military’s power over her, thus the decision to coddle the Palparans of this world and celebrate then as fantastic officers, despite witness upon witness saying otherwise. Proving otherwise.

i caught Storyline’s episode on the desaparecidos of the present. And while sometimes the show’s format doesn’t work (more on this next time), last night, it just did, as it allowed King Catoy to just speak to the camera, with no real sense of an interviewer. Catoy told the story of his 2003 abduction, and spoke of the activists with him who were summarily executed: human rights worker Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy.

what struck too close to home was the fact that he and two others had identified Master Sgt. Donald Caigas as one of their abductors. Caigas would also be the one name that would surface in relation to Karen Empeno’s and Sherlyn Cadapan’s disappearance, and apparent torture and rape. the latter story was witnessed and told by the abducted farmers who would come to be known as the Manalo brothers, Raymund and Reynaldo.

it was Raymund Manalo who claimed that he saw Palparan twice during his three-month detention, before he and his brother escaped to tell their story. in one of those instances, Palparan told him to tell his parents to stop going to protest rallies.

blindfolded, hands tied behind him, and kneeling on the ground, King Catoy was also told the same thing: stop going to rallies, stop whatever it is you’re doing with these activists. stop being yourself.

and everyday, we live through the torture of knowing that many others are disappearing and dying for doing what they do, believing what they will, living a life for justice and democracy that we all should want to live. because people are stolen, are made to disappear, are tortured and raped, and are killed, not simply for their politics. in GMA’s time (as with Marcos’), they are being made to suffer for being themselves.

hazel, a Pinay OFW working as a dancer in Japan cries rape against an American serviceman, three days after she arrived in the land of the rising sun. the case has been dropped by Okinawa police due to “lack of sufficient evidence”. nanay melly, left behind in the philippines, feels helpless, and distance is beside the point. there’s been no government support for her daughter, who would otherwise be seen as a “bagong bayani”, who brings home the bacon, if not the dollars.

mary, a Pinay OFW from Dubai, comes home and decides to get liposuction. the pressure to be thin(ner) than she is, is too much; media images of acceptable women tell her she is otherwise. she dies on the operating table of the Borough Medical Center in Libis Q.C.

in 2006, Pinay nicole got justice in the lower courts, as Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was convicted of raping her. even then, the GMA gov’t allowed for Smith to be kept under US custody in the US Embassy. now, a year and a half later, news has leaked that the Court of Appeals Justice Vasquez Jr., is leaning towards Smith’s acquittal.

juana, an OFW since 2003, was suppose to get her permanent residency in Canada in 2006, as per Canada’s federal live-in caregiver program. as she went through the required medical and criminal clearances, she was found to have cancer. juana asked that the good health requirement be waived for humanitarian reasons, given the fact that she had worked well enough to meet all other requirements for residency. the Canadian gov’t sees her as a liability, a burden to the health care system. now, with stage 4 cancer, the chances remain slim that juana will be granted residency; even slimmer that the Philippine gov’t will help her cause. she has until august 8 to leave Canada.

nanay erlinda cadapan, mother of U.P. student sherlyn who has been missing for two years, finds herself on ANC program “Media in Focus”, beside a female PNP officer who tells her “you are more than welcome in my office anytime, Mrs. Cadapan.” the emptiest line she could possibly hear after two years of searching in vain for sherlyn, and dealing with the police and military’s refusal to cooperate and investigate their own ranks. nanay connie empeño, must feel exactly the same way.

at the end of the segment that featured her, nanay erlinda asks a rhetorical question: bakit po kaya si ces drilon, sampung araw lang ay nahanap na ng gobyerno, samantalang ang aking anak na dalawang taon nang nawawala, at napakarami po naming witnesses, ay hindi ninyo kami matulungan sa paghahanap?

to which host cheche lazaro, maybe surprised that her colleague ces was being dragged into the discussion, or maybe aghast that this woman dared put a media personality on the same level as a student activist, or even that nanay erlinda dared pinpoint a clear discrepancy between how hi-profile personalities and the everyday person is treated by gov’t, says: ano po bang gusto ninyong gawin ng gobyerno para sa kaso ninyo?

as if the answers aren’t obvious enough. as if media itself isn’t guilty of creating the kinds of lives that real women have in this country; or isn’t guilty of perpetuating the notion that we don’t have answers to such cut and dried questions.

as if we didn’t know that if gov’t really cared for its women, then none of them - none of us - would be in the news. for being other than what we want to be, away from home and family, and our sense of selves.

(and it is for these very reasons, that we are hard put to celebrate successes such as this one. via tonyo and adobo:)