All posts by Rogelio Braga

Move On

Personal Blogs

With translation to the English language by novelist Gina Apostol

Kinaladkad nilang lahat ang pamilya Marcos palabas ng Palasyo sa Maynila. Kitang-kita ko lahat ng ginawa nila at buong-buo pa rin sa akin kahit tatlong dekada na ang nagdaan. Hinawakan sa buhok ang mga babaeng Marcos habang ginuguyod palabas ng pintuan. Ang matandang Marcos, nang masilayan nila na nagtatago sa likod ng dambuhalang pintuan na gawa sa nara, pinaulanan kaagad ng ilang suntok, sipa hanggang sa sumirit ang dugo sa gilid ng kanyang mga mata. Siguro ganito ang karahasan: wala nang salita. Dahil habang binubugbog nila ang matandang Marcos, walang nagsasalita sa kanila, ni nagmumura. Tahimik ang kanilang mga bibig habang nandadahas ang kanilang mga kamay. Labaha. Labaha ang ginamit nila para gilitan ang bawat kasapi ng angkan pati ang mga bata. Ang lupit, ang dahas. Nagkalat ang dugo sa mga marmol na sahig ng Palasyo dahil hindi na nila natiis ang galit na habang ginuguyod ang mga kasapi ng angkan ay pinagpapaslang na nila ito na parang mga manok. Makalipas ang isang oras, tumambad sa madla ang mga katawan ng buong pamilya Marcos, isinampay nila ang mga bangkay sa harap ng Palasyo, nakalambitin sa mga alulod. Sumisigaw ang lahat ng kalayaan habang nakatanaw sa mga bangkay. Nakita ako ni Berto at lumapit sa akin. Niyakap niya ako, mahigpit na mahigpit. Humahagulgol siya na parang bata at paulit-ulit niyang sinasabi na malaya na tayo, babalik na ako sa amin sa Tacloban. Lumapit ang Katolikong Kardinal sa mga bangkay pero hinarang siya isang lalaki. Kitang-kita ko ang lahat, ang lalaki at ang Kardinal. Itinaas ng lalaki ang kanang kamay niya sa mukha ng Katolikong Kardinal, napansin ko na nagliliwanag ang kanyang kamay. May hawak ang lalaki. Labaha. Lumapit ako sa dalawa. Pero hindi ganoon kalapit dahil nakakatakot ang lalaki, nangingnginig ang kanyang kamay sa galit, sa poot sa harap ng Kardinal. Nanlilisik ang mga mata niya sa galit at narinig ko ang kanyang mga salita, babala: “Putang ina mo, Kardinal, huwag kang magkakamali ng hakbang. Isinabit namin ang mga bangkay ng mga Marcos bilang babala sa lahat ng mga pamilya at apelyido na matagal nang nagpapatakbo ng aming mga buhay: na gagawin namin ito nang paulit-ulit, sa kahit na anong panahon bigyan lang kami ng pagkakataon. Matakot kayo sa aming mga galit.” At kitang-kita ko ang takot sa mga mata ng Kardinal habang nakatingin sa dulo ng duguang labaha. Nakakatakot ang rebolusyon na iyon, ang dilim, ang dahas, pinaslang nilang lahat ang angkan pati ang mga inosenteng bata. Sana ay hindi na iyon maulit at manatili na ang ganitong maayos na buhay ng mga mamamayan sa atin na may dignidad bilang mga tao. Nakakatakot.

They dragged the family Marcos out of the Palace in Manila. I saw everything they did and I see it all even now though three decades have passed. They held the Marcos women by the hair as they hauled their bodies through the door. When they saw the old Marcos hiding behind the giant door made of narra, they rained punches on him, kicked him until blood dripped through the slits of his eyes. Maybe this is violence: the lack of speech. Because no one spoke as they beat up the old Marcos, not a single curse. Their mouths were silent as their hands attacked. Razors. They used razors that slit each member of the clan including the children. So cruel, so fierce. Blood spread on the marble floors of the Palace because no longer able to bear their rage as they hauled them out they began to hack them as if they were chickens. After an hour all the bodies of the family Marcos were exposed for the crowd to see, they hung the corpses in front of the Palace, dangling from the drainpipes. The crowd screamed out freedom! as they looked at the corpses. Berto saw me and came up to me. He held me tight. He was sobbing like a child, he kept repeating we are free, we are free and I can go home now, to Tacloban. The Catholic Cardinal approached the bodies but a man stopped him. I saw it all, the man and the Cardinal. The man raised his right hand to the Cardinal’s face, I saw his hand was shining. The man held something. A razor. I approached them. But not too close because the man was scary, his hand was shaking from rage, his hate before the Cardinal. His eyes were glaring, and I heard his words, his warning: “Son of a whore, Cardinal, don’t make a wrong move. We hung the bodies of the family Marcos as a warning to all families and names that have run our lives: that we will do this again, just give us a chance, at any moment we’ll take it. You should fear our rage.” And I saw the Cardinal’s fear as he stared at the bloody razor’s edge. That revolution was so scary, so dark, so fierce, they slew them all including the innocent children. I hope it never happens again and that we remain citizens living in human dignity as we are now. So scary.

About the translator. Gina Apostol is the author of the novels Gun Dealers’ Daughter, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, Insurrecto, and Bibliolepsy.

Statement: Continued Attacks and Harassment from the Philippines

Activism, Personal Blogs, Polemics

The impact of the suppression of freedom of expression is double for those writers writing and publishing outside the Philippine Literary Establishment, the mainstream.

TODAY I RECEIVED a message from my publisher here in the UK about an email from someone back home accusing me of ‘anti-workerism’ and ‘misogyny’. The email also asked for my publisher to contact the sender ‘as soon as you can’.

Based on my experiences on this kind of harassment I am receiving since 2016, this is not the usual professional jealousy that you could encounter as a working class writer writing in a country where access to literary and theatrical opportunities are limited to the middle class (from middle class Left to the matapobre Right of the political spectrum in the Philippines) gatekeeping the literary and the theatre establishments. This kind of harassment is to extract more information on my activities from the people who are close and working with me. And this is dangerous for Filipino writers writing and publishing outside the literary establishments in this period in the country where the elite ruling class is correcting itself, transitioning.

As a writer and a playwright, I’ve been accused of so many things in the Philippines – from being a ‘iskwater‘ (someone who grew up from the ghettoes), ‘psychotic’, a bad influence to younger writers, communist terrorist, Muslim terrorist, anti-Filipino, ‘bougie fuckwit’, publicly mocked online from my gender, religious, class orientations to my physical appearance. I am subjected to online bullying since 2016 coming from writers from the Philipine literary establishments, paid trolls, from the State. All these were documented by writers and colleagues who were protecting me since 2016.

In 2017, in desperation probably from professional jealousy or clout from some centrist and right-wing liberal writers, my name was included in the list of writers that should be haunted, shamed, and banned from the literary establishment since I was allegedly supporting the Duterte regime. This happened at the same time while my name was also in the list of the fascist regime’s supporters of anti-Duterte writers and critics that they need to target online!

I welcomed them all.

This is nothing new to me. Last 25th of May, in an attempt to use me to whitewash the image of the country that there is ‘freedom of expression’ in Duterte Philippines, a bookshop owned by the known fascist writer, a National Artist of the Philippines for Literature, one of the most influential liberal, anti-communist partiarchs of the Philipine Literary Establishment wrote me an email if I would like to display my books in their shop. I made my response to the ‘invitation’ public to protect myself and my writing: that I refused as an exiled author to be used as a tool by this fascist regime for propaganda. The supporters of the regime and the coteries of the elitist liberal literary establishment were quick to spin this as my attack to the workers of the bookshop.

My apologies to people, institutions, my publisher, communities here in the UK if ever they received these kinds of harassment from the Philippines stemming from their association with me. My apologies, too, to my translator Kristine Ong Muslim who is being dragged to this mess, targeted because of her association with me.

I am still writing. They are not winning.

Woven Voices Podcast Episode: On Writing in Exile, On Being a Playwright in Duterte Philippines

Personal Blogs, Theatre
Photo taken from Woven Voices site here.

THIS APRIL I appeared in Woven Voices‘ podcast Migreatives. I was in a conversation with UK-based actors and theartre makers Nadia Cavelle, Zachary Fall, and Ben Weaver-Hincks.

In this episode of Migreatives I shared bits about my personal life and my writing: my childhood in the Philippines under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and the Martial Law regime, writing during post-EDSA 1986 People Power Revolution, and up to the return of fascism in the archipelago in 2016 when Duterte came to power and I was both writing in theatre, writing my novels, and my publishing essays online and in other media platforms.

This is the first time I’ve been into a podcast (the form is new to me) and the first time also for me to publicly speak about my experiences in the UK (I did not reveal all to protect some people who were with me and still living in the Philippines surviving the pandemic and the regime) writing under the fascist Duterte regime and my life here in the UK.

One thing that I learned in life as a Filipino playwright writing in Duterte Philippines is to not just to speak truth to power but to speak truth to power at the very moment when it is already necessary to confront a fascist evil regime.

You can listen to the podcast episode by clicking the image below. Trigger warning: there were parts of our conversation where we talked about the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines between 2016-2018 under the Duterte government and then the violence of the para-military group Ilaga (in tandem with the Philippine Army) that massacred Muslim Moros in Southern Philippines during the Marcos regime the 70’s.

Click this image to listen to the podcast episode.

The Miseducation of Young Bangsamoro

Polemics

It all started in an online conversation with a well-meaning brother several weeks ago. The brother displayed on his social media the poster of an organized mass-based progressive group Anakbayan calling for a mass students walkout across the country as a protest against this current administration’s violence on vulnerable groups, taxation policies that will affect poor Filipinos, and the extension of Martial Law in Mindanao.

The poster, a call perhaps on an intersectional resistance against the fascist regime, bears the image of a hijabi as a representation of all the common tao resisting the Duterte government’s continued militarization in southern Philippines.

The well-meaning brother reposted Anakbayan’s publication material on his social media with his corrections highlighting the hijabi and then called on to the public to ask the organization to remove the veiled image from the poster; a call which obviously asking for Anakbayan to remove its poster from the public space. The reason for the call being that the poster was deemed to be culturally and religiously offensive to Muslims.

When Muslim women went to the status update and started to challenge the framing of Anakbayan poster, the discussion expanded and spaces were opened to more interesting perspectives from hijabis themselves.

Positions were challenged, arguments were clarified, and the interesting exchanges made the conversation on the issue more complex that if properly facilitated will definitely lead to several opportunities to discover new ideas and lenses to examine pressing cultural and religious issues in our communities.

The online debate, however, continued as a resident from Marawi entered the conversation thanking Anakbayan for speaking in behalf of them when most of the people and leaders kept their silence on the militarization in city and on the growing list of documented human rights violations during the military operations in Marawi last year. Unfortunately, the discussions were cut short when the post was removed from the public space.

The status update got my attention when it was shared by several friends from my circle. I seldom engage myself in public disagreements with fellow Muslims and I usually send an email or a message to make the conversations contained within our communities.

But we are living in a time that calls for a more public engagements since people’s lives are at stake and we are in a regime that while the Duterte government displaces indigenous people, murders peasants and activists, and the poorest sectors of our communities suffer from elitist economic policies the public cheers in reverence and blind admiration to a government that banks on its legitimacy as a false democratic institution to a populism of people’s ignorance and on the systematic state-sanctioned proliferation of fake news.

Re-reading the post and the reactions of some young Moros on the subtle framing of the issue as a religious discourse (that needed religious scholars instead of political discussions) was both an attempt to silence the dissent and a revelation of a deeper problem that we need to nip in the bud before it’s too late: that there is a growing number of young people sharing the Filipino elite’s burden that is the disdain to mass-based movements and organizations in country where the Filipino ruling class is composed of the landed oligarchy.

Disdain to organized mass movements

I am not an Anakbayan member but I have personal friends and colleagues who are active members of the group. There were several instances in the past that I got engaged in heated online debates with some members of the organization. The group was demonized by several administrations already and some of the members were harassed by military and police authorities.

But Anakbayan, true to its words, is a mass-based organized group composed of students, workers, progressive community organizers, and peasants – mga anak ng bayan (whether the bayan is the same as the banwa and the bangsa, I’ll explore this in another essay.)

But my real contention is this: What’s with the young, educated, urbanite, and professional Moros and their disdain to organized mass movements? This is not my first time to encounter that Islam and the tenets and virtues of Muslims are being utilized to either silence dissent or protect and champion the interests of the Filipino ruling class.

It was in the last national presidential election and in November 2016 that I encountered this seemingly maneuvered and consciously planned political strategy to control the language of the country’s Muslim population: when Bong Bong Marcos was running for the Vice Presidency post and Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

In personal conversations and in the social media, there was the proliferation of “The children do not inherit the sins of their father” narrative as form of a spiel to dispel any criticisms against Duterte’s decision, in tandem with the Marcos family, in burying the remains of the former dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani: an attempt of this administration to rehabilitate the image of the family as they slowly returning back to power.

And what horrified me then were young Moros, leaders in their own communities and circles, educated and well-connected to the center and its networks and institutions, were the complicit drivers and peddlers of this narrative.

Are we creating a generation of Moros that would rather serve the interests of the Filipino elites and maintain the status quo than to continue the struggle to find the most desirable community for their people?

Are young Moros mimicking their generations of pale-faced spineless Filipinos who are educated but are ill-equipped to examine their own country in systems and structures, beyond political and showbiz personalities, their privileges, or can articulate the country’s struggle from the point-of-view of the masses and communities from the peripheries, beyond the official state narration of the nation?

How can we pin down this problem of elitism in our communities? Are we ready to face the consequences – Filipinos and Moros – of this project of creating a generation of young people who were told that their personal achievements in their education, in their professional careers, as government bureaucrats, and in their social and economic status will equate to as a contribution to the larger struggle that will benefit the most vulnerable members of the community?

Or, are we creating young Moros who are more Filipinos than the Filipinos who would rather keep their silence, fight tooth and nail to protect the status quo and their privileges, and follow orders from the ruling families that run their country since time it started to call itself a ‘nation-state’ of confidently ignorant Indios? Philippine history tells us that mimicry has its price in the end; we just need to patiently wait for that tragedy to come post-independence.

Miseducation: integration, counter-insurgency measure, or simply colonial education

Of course, the culprit is the educational system.

Nationalist historian Renato Constantino, in his 1966 essay ‘The Miseducation of the Filipinos’, demonstrated how education was used by the Filipinos’ former colonial master, the Americans, as a tool to pacify the citizens of the newly established republic and eventually introduce the colonialist agenda to the new subjects.

Constantino’s assertions rested on the fact that the American colonial masters used education as an instrument of warfare as “the most effective means of subjugating a people is to capture their minds.”

The narrative of the Bangsamoro struggle is the long centuries of resistance to foreign domination from all the colonial masters who attempted to subjugate the Bangsamoro people – from the Spaniards to the Filipinos. What makes then the Filipino education post-1968 catered to the young Moros different from the former colonial masters? Nobody dared to examine this and we are still waiting for younger generations of progressive and forward-thinking Moro intellectuals to raise the flag.

The Philippine government utilized education as a tool on integrating the Moros in the Filipino body politic. The Mindanao State University system was established in September 1, 1961 to provide young Moros access to knowledge and skills that will keep them abreast with their Filipino counterparts and as one of the interventions to the so-called ‘Mindanao problem’.

Scholarships were also provided by the Philippine Government to Moros who would like to study in Manila and in the country’s premier public universities. The University of the Philippines’ Institute of Islamic Studies was established by Marcos in 1973 to create ‘deeper understanding’ and ‘rapport’ between the University and the ‘Muslims of the Philippines’ – the word ‘Moro’ and ‘Bangsamoro’ then were still unknown perhaps in the vocabularies outside the military camps and bases. Nur Misuari, the chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front even received a UP education.

Was the Filipino education designed for the Moros successfully integrated the latter to the Filipino body politic? Was this kind of education created a generation of Moros that will continue the struggle for their people’s right to self-determination, or was it a tool to pacify Moros and the eventually create a generation of employees that will be beneficial to the labor force requirement of a domestic economy run by few families or the country’s labor export policy?

Or, to ask the most haunting Constantino question: Are we creating a knowledgeable and educated Moros, or ‘good Filipinos’?

The Other Suspects

Post 9/11 and the series of ‘all-out wars’ from the former Estrada and Macapagal-Arroyo administrations invited hundreds of nongovernmental organizations and foreign funding institutions to come to Muslim Mindanao to provide trainings, seminars and other interventions to young Moros with leadership potential.

Aside, of course, from the MSU system in Mindanao, which is a state apparatus, do you think these scholarship programs, extension trainings, youth camps, young leaders workshops and congresses, cultural exchanges, field trips, on-the-job trainings heavily offered post-9/11 in Muslim Mindanao by aid agencies or organizations with donors from aid agencies abroad created a generation of Moros as young leaders with a disdain to organized mass movements, purveyors of neocolonial and neoliberal economic and political ideologies, subservient to the institutional and bureaucratic demands of the Establishment?

One observation I can draw from several years of my interactions with the young leaders as products of these interventions is this: that there is that constant drive to reduce the narrative of the Bangsamoro struggle from a collective struggle for the right to self-determination to a mere expansion of civil liberties and access to privileges in Filipino institutions as a recurring theme of their advocacies.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this. But how long will this kind of ideology be essential in keeping a community that is more humane, tolerant, inclusive, and will provide equal access to all stakeholders? In the binary opposition of reform and revolution where can we locate the accountabilities of these young Moro leaders and their complicity to the power structure that narrates and convinces us at the same time that the Bangsamoro struggle has reached its end and we need to move forward to integration at the expense of their agency, the narratives of historical injustices, and the freedom of their people to chart their own destiny?

Rage against the machinery

The first step perhaps is to critically re-examine the history of the educational system as an intervention by the Philippine government for integration and pacification of the Bangsamoro. Obviously this initiative will not come from the side of the government but from the new generation of Moro intellectuals who are keen on locating the Bangsamoro struggle in the consciousness of the young generations of progressive and forward-thinking Moros.

For the progressive Filipinos on the other hand, it is their duty to expand spaces for more discussions, debates, and to engage the government and its activities and interventions to find a lasting peace in Mindanao.

Only a fool will believe that change is coming by keeping what has been there for so long. We can be at least a Filipino for a time; but we can’t be too Filipino all the time.

This essay was originally published in my column for Tingug.com

Philippine Literary Mafia

Personal Blogs, Polemics

I.

Nagsisimula ito sa ‘kulto ng mentorship’. May mga matatandang manunulat o ang tawag nila sa kanilang mga sarili ay ‘established writer’ ang magmamando o magtatayo ng isang literary organization para, usually, sa mga baguhan at batang manunulat. Sa loob ng ‘literary organization’ na ito sila ang magtatakda ng organizational dynamics o kung paano patatakbuhin ang ‘literary organization’ bilang isang konkretong samahan na may iisang cultural organization. At dahil ang mga ‘established writer’ ang mentor, may kapangyarihan sila, lalo na sa kanilang impluwensiya, na itakda sa literary organization ang kanilang mga pamantayan kung paano maging isang ‘established writer’ tulad nila: ang makasali sa mga pambansang palihan o workshop, manalo sa mga pakontes, at mailathala sa mga publikasyon–at sa panahon ngayon ng internet, ang maging popular sa social media o maging ‘rock star’ ng kontemporanyong Panitikang Pilipino.

Kaya sa loob ng ‘literary organization’ na ito makikita mo ang paglaganap ng dalawang kultura: ang ‘cult following’ at ‘careerist writing’. Ang mga bago at batang manunulat ay magiging ‘cult followers’ ng kanilang mga mentors; fandoms o ‘groupie’ ng rock star . Nangyayari ito dahil nga sa impluwensiya na itinakda rin mismo ng mga‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ sa loob ng ‘literary organization’. Ang problema rito palagi ay nasa lebel ng estetika: mapapansin mo habang lumalaki ang organisasyon, pare-pareho na ang kanilang pagsusulat, ang boses, tema, at ang mga problema na tinatalakay ng kanilang mga akda, ang kanilang pulitika. Mahalaga ang kalakaran na ito sa mga ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ dahil sa ganitong paraan lamang nila mapananatili ang kanilang impluwensiya at katuturan bilang manunulat–at minsan, kahit hindi na sila magsulat at maglabas ng mga bagong akda. Ito rin kasi ang magbibigay proteksiyon sa kanila para mapanatili ang kanilang mga posisyon: una, sa ‘pormal’ man tulad ng sa loob ng akademya o directorship o panel sa mga palihan o guro ng malikhaing pagsulat sa isang unibersidad na may permanent employment status at ikalawa, ‘informal’. ‘Informal’ tulad ng kanilang katanyagan sa mga mambabasa o impluwensiya sa mga bago at kabataang manunulat at ang mga kasamang benepisyo nito. Ang mga ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ ay palagi mong maririnig na magkukuwento ng tungkol sa kanilang mga pinagdaanan bilang mga batang manunulat hanggang sa kung paano nila naabot ang kanilang pagiging ‘established’, ang kanilang mga natanggap na karangalan, mga nadaluhang workshop, mga kilala pang mga manunulat na tila barkada lang nila at kaututang-dila sa mga inuman.

Kalingkis ng ‘cult following’ ang ‘careerist writing’. Sa mga huntahan sa loob ng mga ‘literary organization’ na ito maririnig mo palagi ang mga pakontes, national awards at workshops, at ang mga pangalan ng publishing company. Ang mga ito kasi ang itinindig na istandard ng mga ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’: magiging ‘established’ writer ka kung mananalo ka sa mga pakontes, Palanca halimbawa, makapasok sa mga national writers workshops at magkaroon ng mga kilala at kainumang ‘established’ writers din para magwagi ka sa mga pakontes o makapasok sa mga national writers workshop. Social capital, networking. At ang uso ngayon dahil napasok na rin ng sistemang mafiosi ang publikasyon, mailathala ka sa ilang mga publishing house dahil sa tulong, padulas, paandar ng isang ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’. At palagi mong maririnig ang paboritong linya ng isang ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ sa kanilang mga transaksiyon: “Para ‘yan sa mga kabataang manunulat at sa kanilang development bilang manunulat” na ang pokus talaga ay hindi sa paglikha, kundi para sa manlilikha–esensiyal na pundasyon ng ‘cult following’ at ‘careerist writing’.

Kaya huwag kang magtataka na sa loob at labas ‘literary organization’ na ito may ‘pulitika’ o power struggle, nag-aaway-away ang mga kasapi. Huwag kang magtataka kung ang ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ ay magiging ‘gate-keeper’ na rin o magtatalaga sila ng kanilang mga alter-ego sa loob ng ‘literary organization’. Minsan ang pag-aaway ay nagbabalat-kayong ideolohikal o pulitikal kuno, pero ang totoo: nag-aaway-away lamang ang kasapi para sa mas malapit na posisyon at lokasyon sa pagiging ‘established writer’ ng mga ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ at ng kanilang sistema .

Ang ‘cult following’ at ‘careerist writing’ ay pundasyon ng isang sakit, kanser, ng literary community sa Pilipinas: ang padrino system. Hindi ito talaga tungkol sa pagsusulat, sa paglikha, sa pagwasak ng mga nakasanayan. Tungkol palagi ito sa kapangyarihan at kung sino ang kilala mo o kung kanino ka nakakapit.

At ang sistema ay magpapatuloy hanggang sa ang kultura at imprastraktura ng ganitong kalakaran ay dadalhin na ng mga naging produkto ng ‘literary organization’, ng kanilang mga frankenstein at zombie— hanggang sa sila na ang magiging ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ na rin, ang magtatayo o magiging kasapakat ng establishment: uupong judge sa mga pakontes, panel sa workshop, ‘middleman’ ng mga publishing house, o adviser ng mga ‘literary organization’. At ang siklo ng ganitong saliwang proseso ng pampanitikan at kultural na produksiyon ay ipapasa sa mga bago at kabataang manunulat at magpapatuloy hanggang sa maging bahagi na ang pambansang panitikan na ang mithi talaga ay hindi pagsusulat, paglikha, pagwasak kundi kanonisasyon at pagpapanatili ng status quo.

II.

Siguro magtatanong ka at tatapunan ako ng paghusga bilang manunulat na sa sobrang dami ng problema ng Pilipinas, nagkaroon ka ng oras at lakas na pag-usapan ang pagsusulat at literary mafiosi sa Pilipinas. Siguro iisipin mo na ganito talaga ako kababaw. Tatanggapin ko ang lahat ng paghusga dahil itinuturing ko na rin itong pagtatapos ng isang usapin na may kinalaman sa akin nitong nagdaang mga araw.

Nitong nakaraang linggo, sa aking pananahimik, nagsimula na naman akong makatanggap ng atake mula sa isang manunulat na mula na kasapi ng isang ‘literary organization’. Matagal ko nang hindi pinapatulan ang mga atake dahil noon pa man alam ko na wala naman itong kinalaman sa aking mga sinusulat, naunawaan ko na bahagi lamang ito (ang rabid na pag-atake) ng isang sistema, ng kultura ng literary mafiosi-style sa Pilipinas. Pinatulan ko na lamang ito ngayon dahil may kinalaman na sa aking paniniwala at pagkatao ang atake at nasa orbit na ng pulitika ng aking mga sinusulat.

Nagsimula ang pag-atake na ito noong Mayo nang mailantad sa social media ng isang kilalang direktor at manunulat ang kalakaran ng manunulat na ito bilang ‘careerist writer’ ng ‘literary organization’. Inilantad na ang modus ng manunulat na ito ay ang makadalo sa mga national writers workshop, marahil natuklasan niya na sa ganitong paraan siya makakakuha ng akses sa mga ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ ng mga establishment. Natuklasan ko kasi sa pagtatanong-tanong sa dati kong unibersidad na sa ganitong paraan pala siya nagsimula: nang ginamit niya ang unang workshop na nadaluhan sa UST bilang lunsaran ng kanyang ‘literary career’. Kaya ang galit niya sa akin ay hindi pampanitikan at hanggang impiyerno pa yata. May hinuha ako na ang galit na ito ay nang mailantad sa publiko ang gawain at kalakaran ng kanyang literary mafia, ng kanyang ‘literary organization’. Palagi, dapat kasi, ang mga galawang mafiosi ay patago, pailalim, malayo sa kritikal na diskurso.

At alam kong bilang na ang araw ko bilang manunulat dahil sa pagsusulat ng sanaysay na ito. Isa kasi itong paglalantad ng gawain at kalakaran ng literary mafia na na-obserbahan ko sa maikling taon sa loob ng akademya. Inaasahan ko na kukuyugin muli ako ng mga kasapi ng ‘literary organization’ na ito tulad ng ginawa nila sa akin noong Mayo nang unang mabunyag ang kanilang kalakaran para ipagtanggol ang produkto ng kanilang sistema, at ang kanilang frankenstein, ang kultura nila ng ‘cult following’. Hindi lang pala sila mga ‘rock star’ groupie, sila ay mga little monster ng mga ‘pop star diva’ rin.

At totoo ngang makapangyarihan ang mga nasa loob ng literary mafia na ito kung impluwensiya at soft power lang ang pag-uusapan. Nailathala muli ng manunulat na ito ang kanyang aklat na unang nailathala noong 2012. Sa aklat pa lamang bilang komoditi makikita mo na kaagad ang bahid o basbas ng sistema ng ‘established-writer-cum-mentor’ mula introduksiyon, blurbs, estetika, at lokasyon ng pulitika ng teksto na sumusuporta sa pambasang pulitika ng pamahalaan na pinatatakbo ng oligarkiya (at sa aklat na ito, ang lantarang promosyon ng labor export policy gamit ang aliwan sa fantasy production ng LGBT narratives) hanggang sa pamagat ng aklat na sumasapul sa saktong target market. At tunay ngang makapangyarihan ang impluwensiya dahil ang aklat na unang nailathala noong 2012 ay finalist ngayon sa 2016 National Book Awards. Hinihintay ko nga itong manalo nang mapatotohanan ko kahit na papaano ang claim sa nasaysay na ito.

Pero siyempre, ang tunay na panlaban palagi sa mafiosi ay ang ilantad sila sa publiko at hilahin sa mga kritikal na diskurso.

III.

Hindi kailangan ng isang manunulat ang maging ‘established’. Dahil sa paglikha, wala naman talagang ‘established’ sapagkat isa itong proseso rin ng pagwasak. Hindi kailangan ng manunulat ang isang ‘literary organization’, dahil ang pagsusulat lalo na sa sitwasyon ng postkolonyal na Pilipinas na pinatatakbo ng iilang pamilya ay mas may katuturan kung ito ay ang pagwasak ng institusyon, ng mga kung anumang ‘establish’ para lumikha ng bago at wasakin din pagkatapos. Hindi naman kailangan ng isang manunulat ang mentor; lahat tayo manunulat mas nauna nga lamang ipinanganak ang iba. At ang manunulat, habang lumalakad ang panahon, tumataas dapat ang antas ng pangarap ng kanyang pagsusulat at hindi nahihimpil para maging establishment, mga gusali at monumentong matatayog at matatag na nakatindig na parang hindi mapababagsak ng panahon at lindol. Ngunit ang mga monumento at gusali at may katuturan lamang sa isang panahon ng estetika na itinatakda ng kung sino ang nasa kapangyarihan: wala pa rin itong kinalaman sa paglikha, sa pagsusulat. Hindi kailangan ng manunulat ang ‘squad’ na magtatanggol sa kanya sa mga pag-atake ng mga nasa kabilang literary mafia. Mas makabubuti siguro sa manunulat ang mag-isang masaktan, mag-isang mabigo nang matutunan niyang mabigo nang may dangal at respeto sa sarili bilang manlilika. Hindi kailangan ng manunulat ang mga institusyon para makapagsulat, lumikha. Dahil ang pagsusulat mismo at ang manunulat, sa paliwanag nga ni Sartre, ay isa nang institusyon.

Ang tanging kailangan ng isang manunulat, kung ako ang tatanungin mo pero hindi naman ito nakataga sa bato, ay ang lahat ng hindi naisama sa ‘hindi kailangan’ na mga nabanggit sa itaas.

Returning to blogging

Personal Blogs

I had my first blog probably when I was in my early 20’s, Philippines then was different compared to what it is right now – with all the killings, a populist president, writers, journalists and cultural workers are killed en masse. I decided to stop blogging when I started to use the social media. Like everyone else of my generation, I started with Friendster and I used this platform until, if I can still remember, 2007 when I started to use Facebook. I decided to stop blogging and maintaining my own website when it was easier for me to connect to friends, my readers, colleagues, and family members through the social media.

I was a Facebook addict. It’s the fist thing I checked when I wake up every morning and the last thing I closed before I sleep at night. For almost a decade my life was dependent on Facebook. It provided me opportunities and memorable happy experience but it equally gifted with horror stories – from bullying and body shaming in 2016, to death threats since Duterte came into power, to relentless surveillance and intimidation. I returned to blogging because I am slowly leaving social media.

This website is my window to my readers and comrades back home or those who were scattered elsewhere on the planet. The extrovert in me would still like to engage people through exchanges of ideas, experiences, histories, and even the most mundane things such as advises on relationships, cooking, traveling, and life in general.

I will try to be as generous in this website. But please remember: I need to write, to focus on my research endeavors, spend time reading and being with my friends – or, fighting an oppressive government. I can’t be on this site daily just to update everyone.

I will slowly exit from social media and move all my energies in keeping this site. I don’t need to be in constant contact with everyone. I don’t need to be always accessible to those do not really care about me and works.

Thank you for being here.