Kadlit Kolum: Koleksiyon ng mga Kolum

EDITORIAL: The Task of Writing and Art in the Age of Tokhang

In the Philippines, June 12th of every year is normally greeted with reverence as it is pegged as “Araw ng Kalayaan” or Independence Day; a momentous declaration indeed, in the history of the Philippines. For what is the essence of being human but to be free, to be part of a sovereignty, and to be secure from foreign aggression and economic intrusion and sabotage? And as Freire would say, to be truly humanized is to move and work in a world where the needs of man are considered genuine necessities for a fuller, more meaningful life, rather than luxuries to be ignored in favor of profiteering. Hardly does a day go by that we do not learn of how we are sinking further into economic disrepair, and our culture is an expression of this devastation and our adaptation to the series of crises that have long-term implications to our quality of lives as Filipinos.

It goes without saying that not all that is formally declared is true, not even with the help of historico-legal documents presenting themselves as bearers of absolute truth. For in the ensuing dialectic of history, legal and “historical” documents can be rendered absolutely meaningless in the face of the inexorable movement of Philippine society under the rule of transnational capitalist classes, mobile capital, and foreign rule that never truly left the Philippines. Formal declarations of the government that state that the Philippine nation is free is meaningless if the leadership of the sovereignty has been blindsided by populism, demagougery, and so much sanctioned noise that genuine voices of dissent are silenced and relegated to the trash bin.

To say that the traces of colonialism in the Philippines is fleeting would be to ignore our dependence on many supranational bodies, such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, ASEAN, and many other trans-national bodies that all embody the nature of the world today: globalized, under the rule of Empire, as Hardt & Negri would say.

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Writing in the Age of Tokhang and the threat of further state-sanctioned political violence appears daunting, even impossible, given the conditions of writers and even artists. There is no question at all that creatives are rendered helpless by deplorable realities, such as market demand and a strange notion of ‘deservingness’ that is merely measured, again, by popularity and salability. But then again, to measure a writer or artist only by his creation’s populist qualities would be akin to measuring a person by his appearance on a particular Monday morning. The measurement is arbitrary, unforgiving and ultimately nonsensical, for it only takes into account the form and presentation of a person’s creative efforts at a particular time of his or her life.

A much better measurement of a creative person perhaps would be his actual participation in the affairs of the day—that in times of permanent crisis, what does the creative individual actually do to become part of the positive movement against tyranny, economic sabotage and political enslavement to a few ruling families?

And here lies an essence of freedom that we can all rely on, any stormy night: that genuine freedom means choosing and acting upon specific impulses that equate to a final bid for freedom. And this kind of freedom is only ultimately achieved in a collective manner, as communities acting with other communities, and never on our own as atomized individuals.

For the bitter truth of it all is that all of our creative efforts are for naught if they are not for this final bid for freedom. Our narratives as writers and all the lines that we draw as artists universally express a desire to be human, to be free, and to live our collective existences in societies that are not anti-human, but rather, HUMAN/E in the highest possible ways.

The direction is never always clear; in fact, in most cases, the artist and writer are left to their own devices. But these resources that we already have as creative beings, they are sufficient to begin the task of rebuilding what has been destroyed, of recuperating what has been lost to the endless series of political storms. For what is sovereignty and power without bare life, as Agamben would put it? Nothing. We are the true sovereign. We are the nation, and the powers that be are only as powerful as their influence and the belief that they are necessary for the continuation of national life. And in the end, we hold the key to changing people’s beliefs and perceptions with our chosen disciplines. It is never too late—never.

|| The editorial is a collective representation of the columnists from the Katipunan ng Alternatibong Dibuho, Liriko, at Titik. The editorial cartoon is from Patricia Ramos' depiction of the 'cardboard justice' initiated by tokhang.