It has been some days since the anniversary of the infamous declaration of Martial Law. I saw posts from friends and former students attacking activists with questions (and sarcasm) like “Kahit naman sinong presidente, ayaw niyo pa rin, kailan ba kayo matatapos sa kaka-rally?!” or “Akala ko ba mataas presyo ng bilihin? Eh bakit nakagastos pa kayo para lang makagawa ng effigy na susunugin?” I write this in response to these. I write this not because I find my friends who post it to be stupid (although if they share fake news they sure are hopelessly stupid). I write this because I, too, once thought on the same lines. My own journey from passivist to activist Politically, I’m neither red nor yellow, in fact I want to assure you dear friend that I transcend all colors because I think therefore I am (wink to Descartes!). If we are in Europe, I might be called a left-leaning centrist: I seek to balance my conservative beliefs with my liberal ideals. I am someone who will offend both left and right since I always stands with Aristotle’s in medias res. But I have not always been like this. When I was in high school, the same age most of my “right-wing” former students, I am more of ultra-right wing, activist-detesting, nationalistic ideologue. I, too, question the worth of activism and their untiring efforts. I view them as hindrance to national progress and their criticism as unhelpful and infantile. And then I learned that I am the infantile one. When I took the PUPCET, I was so repulsed by the sight of anti-government streamers and placards. For me, this is vandalism. I wanted to enroll in another school, a Catholic University maybe, where my place in the ivory tower of well-maintained cuticle, immaculately clean shirts, and intellectual superiority will be safeguarded against the virus that was activism and communism. Yes, I was too Americanized I already have bias against that which I do not know. But God writes through crooked lines. I did not enter a private university so I have to stick with PUP where “activists and communists” thrive. Upon entering I made a pact with myself: 1.) Never join a frat; 2.) Never fail a subject; and 3.) Never join an activist group. I managed to fulfill the first two (although I almost missed number 2) but the last one I did not. I was taking AB Philosophy. I thought the loftiness and sophistry of philosophical ideas will save me from the dirt of social awareness but I was wrong—it soiled me more into social responsibility. The words of our great professor, Ka Abe Tuibeo still rings in my ears: “Kung wala kang ipinaglalaban sa buhay, you’re a worthless animal.” I began my philosophical studies hating Marx and ended haunted by his words, “Philosophers should not just question the world; it is they time to change the world.” In front of my own social security I found myself guilty of the very destituteness of the Other as Levinas gazes more and more on me. I realized that Thomas Aquinas’ quinque viae of proving God’s existence first proves to me that my neighbor exists and if so and if God exists too, then I am infinitely responsible to him. Even in Nietzsche’s proclamation of God’s death, I am still bounded by the look of the Other that Sartre said is also objectifying me. I am more and more becoming a social animal that a true human being is. And so awake from my dogmatic slumber, with Kant and Heidegger as my guides, I joined a moderate activist group. First it was just a matter of being pragmatic: I joined them then I got friends and tutorials on some subjects, I can even borrow books I need. But later on, I have really committed myself. Our group’s advocacy then is not too political but since politicians and capitalists almost always are brothers, then it becomes political. We advocate the restraining of greedy mining. I have not participated in a rally or a “hiking” and I left the group when I also left PUP and entered the seminary. But the lessons of social responsibility and beyond is still with me. Now I am just an “arm-chair activist” with no other weapon but my words. Still, as Ka Abe always say to us then, “Words are more violent than arms struggle.” Weapons will kill a man but words can give life to humanity. And so, I write this because I understand both sides of the fence. “Gawa nang gawa ng effigy na susunugin, aksaya lang sa pera” With the effigies to be burned and arm-chairs to be thrown, I too share the sentiments of many that it is just a waste of money. Yet one must not forget the symbolism these acts convey. In a sense, making an effigy and burning it is a form of an art and art is not just for consumption of us in the middle-class visiting a museum where artworks that cost billions were exhibited, art is the self-expression of the artist. Behind the seeming waste of resources, activists whose thoughts words can no longer present use these visual arts to express themselves. In denouncing them because of “wasting money for their cause” then we also denounce Pablo Picasso’s works which are his self-expression and rebellion against the capitalistic realism of his time, we denounce Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy where he denounces the corruption of both the secular and ecclesiastical authorities of his time, we denounce Juan Luna’s Spoliarium that so vividly present the brutality of colonial rule as just a waste of oil and canvass. Again, the words of the cop that became viral sounds right: “May pinaglalaban sila.” Puro rally at pagtuligsa sa gobyerno, wala naman naitulong sa bayan… My answer to this is a flat, loud “You’re wrong dearest.” Most of the liberties we take for granted in a modern liberal state is not inherently part of democracy and were only successfully installed when people rose up and incessantly “rallied” for it. Examples? The 8-hour maximum work-time, the illegality of minors working, and slavery. When modern democracies sprung up in the late 18th century, capitalism is also on the rise. It is just normal to see people working 12-14 hours a day with a wage depending on the employer (yes, there’s no minimum wage) and children as young as five years old as workers. Only when people “rallied” against it that it was scrapped. Universal suffrage. When states adopted democracy, suffrage or voting is reserved only for men—white men, educated, bourgeoisie, white men. All others are excluded. It is only thru activism that states adopted the universal suffrage. And of course, how do you call Rizal’s works if not a form of activism? Did not Rizal help shape the destiny of this country? Kailan ba matatapos ang pagrarally ng mga lintek na aktibistang ‘yan? NEVER. Yes, you read it right, never. When revolutions become successful and the former slaves become masters, it is inevitable that the former revolutionary will someday morph into a dictator. This is an irrevocable burden of justice: justice carries violence even as it fights violence. A former critic who successfully overthrows the governor and becomes himself the governor may one day find himself silencing his own critics (the Bolsheviks of Russia is an example with Stalin as the apex). That is why the French Jewish Philosopher of Responsibility, Emmanuel Levinas, tells us that there is a need for a continuing revolution. A justice that always seek improvement. Like Hegel’s dialectic, the human dilemma is that every synthesis becomes a thesis and as such needs an anti-thesis to perfect and correct itself and make a new synthesis and the process repeats. An idea becomes polished only when challenged. The human condition is that we are innovative animals—we cannot just sit idly looking at what we have and say, “Hey, it’s already beautiful I won’t change it.” Change, according to Heraclitus, is the only permanent thing in the world. Even when opposition seems pestering and annoying, its views are still beneficial to the improvement of a project. Conclusion We cannot achieve utopia (in fact that’s why it is called u-topia meaning a place that does not and will not exist) but as human beings we have to try and try and try. The constitution enshrines it with the words: “in order to build a more just and humane society.” The catechism tells us that human life on earth is a preparation for heaven, and if so then we should strive to let His “Kingdom come” and His “will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is a daily call. Complacency always leads to social perdition. Whether you choose to go to the streets, or write a critical essay about our social condition in the silence of your room, or try to live out your daily life trying to change the world in your own small ways, these are all what makes as human and humane. Only he who comfortably sits, cellphone on hand, spewing hatred against socially-committed persons, sharing fake news, secure in his world with his enclosed mind is not worthy to called a human being. - Anonymous Lenz 09/25/18
So, Sen. Tito Sotto’s Senate Bill 1906 or the TRAIN 2 bill that is renamed as “TRABAHO” (Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities) bill so as not to have the stigma of the unpopular TRAIN 1 Law has a provision that seeks to repeal Section 12 of RA 8047 or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995. RA 8047 Sec 12 exempts books, periodicals, and other such printed educational and cultural materials from the expanded-value added tax. Should TRAIN 2 passes, another train wreck will happen, now in the reading culture in the Philippines. “Eh ‘di naman nagbabasa ang ‘Pinoy,” some may say. But the fact that you are reading this essay and the probability of you being a Filipino betrays the very argument uttered above. Yes, we read! Yes, we do! The common misconception in our feudal-oligarchic society is that reading is only for the elite few, for the middle-class who still have time to waste and to escape the daily pressures of life. The argument that Filipinos do not read is so pervasive that slowly it is becoming a reality and here we have a government, who instead of encouraging a paradigm shift in this cultural bias, seems to put more sand to the fire of learning and culture. How reading changed my life It was on a sleepy summer-break afternoon of my 5th grade self that I first reached a book that is not a school requirement. I only got friends from school and my parents work during the day while my siblings always have their own schedule with friends during summer so naturally I am left alone with food to stuff my stomach and a television to stuff (supposedly) my mind. Bored with the noontime shows’ monotonous antics and the solitary confinement I am at, I reached for a book. My siblings’ books are displayed (yes, displayed) at the lowest part of our estante in the sala (ironically, the TV is at its center as if it is the heart of the house). There I found another world. There the silence around me began to be filled with people from far far away or maybe just near near here yet unseen so far. There I have travelled without leaving our home. There I have accompanied someone solve a crime. There, for the first time, I learned what adventure is and how does it feel. With that new discovery, I thought I was unique. And I am wrong.
self with walking home just to buy a book at least once in every six months. My sisters would smile at my innocent joy when sniffing the pages of a new book and this made them buy more or give me money to buy more for me. I thought we were unique. And I was wrong. In college, we have been exposed to STPAULS Librería. After college and after my short stint as a teacher in a senior high, I have to be exposed to it once again. All in all, I’ve been at SM Bicutan, LKK CDO, and Ayala Cebu branches. What I’ve seen during my short stays in these stores is that there is a hunger for the printed word. And mind you, these are religious printed materials. Yes, the demand for it pales in comparison to the demand for religious articles and stuff but there has not been a week that there has been no book sold. One or two a day, regardless it speaks of a spiritual need for the printed word. Also, at the same time, I encountered Fullybooked. This is not just a bookstore; Fullybooked for me is a community. You can seat there, read a book even without buying it first; you can converse with other bibliophiles if you are the outgoing type; and in their main branch you can even sip a cup of coffee or lick an ice cream while reading. I’ve been at their CDO, Cebu, and BGC branches and never have I been the lone customer in the building. And yes, never have I been the only one who looks like whose wallet is full of crumpled fifties or one-hundreds saved after weeks of struggling between life choices and the joy of reading a new book.
I, too, once thought that reading is for the elite and by reading I too becomes one of them but I was wrong. And I love that I am wrong about it. How reading changed the world and the PH The history of printing is very long so I need not elaborate here too much or else I’ll just bore you and you’ll never reach the end of this essay especially that of my main point. So here is a sketch of how reading and printing changed the course of human history (just research about them if you are interested):
Why we don’t read Given all these, you’ll still ask, “Why are we not reading?” For me there are two reasons, that SB no. 1906, instead of extinguishing, will just encourage more.
Conclusion
Regardless of these obstacles, according to the latest survey (2012; ohhh so long ago) by the National Book Development Board of the Philippines, 88% of us are readers (see http://booksphilippines.gov.ph/2012-readership-survey-highlights/). And I have seen with my own eyes that Filipinos regardless of age do read. Someone once told me that Filipinos do read but they only read what they want to read. So, if we continue feeding ourselves lies then we would hunger for more lies. And taxing books and other printed media will really help this trick. But if we are committed to the truth then we should feed ourselves with those that can sharpen the criticality of our minds. Books, my dear friends, might not all contain the Truth. In fact, they can contradict each other too. But at least they teach us one thing: have a critical mind. What we should do is promote reading more; lower books’ prices if it can be; help our people who are physically and financially unable to own a book either because they are far from cities or because they simply don’t have enough even for their own food. Books are necessities in a free society. As we fill our hungry stomachs, we should also fill our hungry minds and imaginations. The two goes hand-in-hand. Thomas Aquinas would say, “Eat first then philosophize” with which Karl Marx would add, “You cannot think with a hungry stomach.” But with a society who punishes the hungry because of his hunger, what can the boy who longs for a book do? NERUDA: A FILM IN THE MOST NERUDAIC SENSE “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” – Pablo Neruda Who am I? Am I just a character in a fiction, forever trapped in the mind of the author? These were the questions that flooded my mind after watching the 2016 Chilean film directed by Pablo Larrain entitled, Neruda, in honor of the late poet and diplomat, Pablo Neruda. Originally, I intend to write this essay for explicating the ideas of communism especially in our “Americanized” consciousness but the issues of identity and existence surpassed the first reason. Historical point: Pablo Neruda is a poet, a diplomat and an ex-senator of Chile. At the age of 12, he began to be known because of his poetry. By his 20’s, he already published his much-acclaimed, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desasperada (Twenty Poems and a Song of Despair). He serves in numerous diplomatic capacities in his early years. In the midst of the Spanish Civil War, he is the Chilean consul to Madrid. This experience opened his eyes to the longing of the people trampled by the bourgeois. Since then he adopted communism as his political identity. Upon return to Chile in the 1940’s he was elected Senator of the Republic. President Gonzalez Videla of the Radical Party asked him to be his campaign manager which Neruda gladly did. However, upon being elected, Videla betrayed the left (which is actually the base of his electoral triumph) by illegalizing the Communist Party. Everything took its peak when Videla ordered the arrest of picketing miners supported by the communists. Augusto Pinochet, commander of the armed forces and later dictator of Chile during the ‘70s until early 90’s (sounds familiar eh?), led the arrests and putting the communists and those who sympathize with them in concentration camps. Eventually, Videla ordered the arrest of Neruda in an attempt to counter his popularity among the citizenry. Neruda was then sacked from the senate and was gone hiding from the government forces for almost thirteen months. Eventually he escaped Chile through passing the mountains to Argentina by horseback. He then settled in Paris with his friend Pablo Picasso, leading the resistance against Videla. The film revolves around this point of Neruda’s life. It involves a healthy mixture of fiction and history, very Nerudaic if you ask me. A keen young policeman named Óscar Peluchonneau was tasked to pursue Neruda. Then a cat and mouse chase ensue with Peluchonneau always arriving at the place where Neruda was a minute ago only to find detective pulp fiction with a dedication to him by Neruda. Ultimately, the Communist Party decided to smuggle Neruda out of the country through the mountains but his wife has to be left behind. Peluchonneau then questions her about her husband. Instead of telling him about Neruda, she began telling him about him. She tells him that in every story there is a primary and a secondary character, in this story the secondary character is the policeman. This unsettles him. She further says that while Neruda and her are historical figures, that is they exist in the physical world, Peluchonneau, on the other hand, is just a figment of Neruda’s imagination. An imagined character made by a prisoner’s bored mind. This destroys his confidence. And so, to prove his reality, he follows Neruda until the mountains. At the end, unable to reach Neruda, he kills himself. Neruda then finds his corpse. His companions asked him if he knows Peluchonneau and said “No… Yes…” At the end the viewer will ask himself: “Is the policeman the creation of the poet? Or is the poet the creation of the policeman?” In this imagined world where history and fiction mixes gracefully, who indeed is real? Peluchonneau, nearing the end of his life, tells the audience through the narration, “Here I am the pawn of the traitor Videla… or am I not? Am I Neruda himself?” After watching the film, I have to pause for almost an hour wondering the same question: “Here am I a pawn in this universe… or am I not? Am I the universe itself? Who really am I?” Who am I? This is the question humankind has tried over and over again not to face. We invented distractions just to escape this question. But who really is this I? What is he? Why is I? Why I? What if I am just a pigment of your imagination? Worse, what if we are just character in a fiction? I guess I should have just stayed with discussing communist thought. Over all, Neruda is great film and I will recommend it to anyone who can understand Spanish (since there is still no English dub or good English sub available). For the meantime, here is a sample of Pablo Neruda's poem in English and the original Spanish:
I was in a wake. The funeral parlor does not look like one upon ascending the steps rather it looks like a hotel for the middle class. No signs of death can be seen except when you see the pictures of the dead hanging outside their room as if claiming territory. Yes, I am in the territory of the dead. And yet, this is still the territory of the living too. We entered the spacious hall that could fill 20-40 people (I think it can support 60 when jampacked) yet only hosts 3 at the time we arrived (not counting the dead). I was culture-shocked for not seeing the traditional Apostolados ng Panalangin, the manangs talking and whispering, the tong-itans, mahjongs, and saklas that so characterized and gave color to Philippine wake culture. Instead, I stand in front of a casket adorned side-by-side by flowers and a TV monitor playing an AVP of the pictures of the deceased. The deceased is the grandmother of my friend. I have never met her before and yet her death speaks to me like the death of my own grandmother years before: ringing in my ears, “Why only now? Why haven’t you seen me when I can still smile to you and give you my blessing?” Yes, I don’t know her if not for her apo but still death has this faint voice that accuses us of running from our responsibilities, one can hear it if one can and will only listen. Without the usual distractions, I heard it more clearly than ever.
“You cannot really be happy in this life… Augustine says we are always in the now, in the present, but I think there is no now, the reality of time is that everything becomes a past and everything is still a future, it’s all mixed up.” That is what my friend said that struck me that night. Well, that or another thing for I cannot remember the exact words he uttered. I munched on it until the day after. The problem of time filled my hours even until the next day. I was writing the Mass Parts of September’s First Friday issue of Sambuhay then when I found that the Gospel and reflection still contained the issue of time. Time has been following me like a hound for its prey. Maybe, that is what wakes are for: to remind us of time. We commonly think of wakes as an honor for the dead but in fact it is not for the dead but for the living. As we sat there we remember not just her memory, the then, but also our future. And if my friend’s argument be taken, then that wake made us conscious of the very mixed-ness of the past and the future of the now of our discussion. The photos in the AVP that tells of a happy past is also a warning for the living of the imminent future: that, in the end, death is inevitable. “You cannot really be happy in this life…” said my friend who styles himself as a Lord of Oblivion. Maybe that’s why we believe in eternal life. I myself believe in it. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas believe that all our actions are geared towards the good, towards happiness. If we cannot be truly happy in this earthly existence then what if in the next if there is a next one. Maybe that’s why the Salve Regina calls this world the valley of tears and it is rightly so. But whether there’s life thereafter or none is none of our business. The deceased in front of us asks us not to look beyond her death but on her death itself. Whether she lives again or not will be the problem of whoever is in charge, whether it be God, nature, Intelligence or the mad scientist experimenting a brain-in-a-vat. What this wake asks of us is to live in this mixed-ness of the past and the present, to mingle with it savoring every tears and laughter as we journey our way. After all, we could all be Schrödinger’s cats so better have dived deeply into life. We talked more about ourselves than the dead and rightly so. In wakes, one should talk about life. Yes, it is befitting to remember the memories of the dead but death itself invites us to reconsider this mixed-ness of future and past we call the unfathomable present. In front of the dead Other, the I is confronted with the question: “Have I lived a life as fruitful as hers? Have I indulged in the woes and sufferings of this valley of tears? Have I lived thoroughly each laughter I elicited in my existence? Have I been humane enough to be called human?” What is time? What is happiness? How can I be happy? Can I really be happy? When? Now? Never? Thereafter? These are eternal questions poised to us by the death of the Other.
-Lennon caranzo, sspJust a travelling someone in this reality we fell in live with. |
anonymous lenzJust a traveling someone in this reality we have fallen in love with... this we call our world... "What is essential is invisible to the eyes..." Tags
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"The absolutely other is the Other" Archives
September 2018
"There is only one corner in the universe that you can be certain of improving and that's your own Self" |