Category Archives: Polemics

Written on the Bodies: The Language of the Hostile Environment

Polemics, Research Works

Last November, the English PEN invited me to write an essay for their PEN Transmissions Magazine. This is English PEN’s online magazine for international literature, in which they publish interviews and short personal essays. Past contributors included Olga Tokarczuk, Zadie Smith, Ananda Devi, Maryse Condé, June Bellebono, Scholastique Mukasonga, Samar Yazbek, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Olivia Laing, Geovani Martins, Tice Cin, Jay Bernard, Priyamvada Gopal, Malorie Blackman, Anuradha Roy, Mia Couto, Selva Almada, Peter Stamm and Svetlana Alexievich.

I wrote about my experiences in the Philippines and as a migrant living in the UK. I consider this essay as an articulation of the trajectory of the direction of my writings (in theatre, my fiction, and in my academic endeavors), my creative processes, interests, and politics for the next decade or so.

Published last January, I consider this piece as my first literary work written and published entirely in the English language and outside of the Philippines.

Also, some of the ideas I introduced in this essay were lifted from my current research work for my practice-based PhD at Birkbeck and with my current engagement with the Royal Court Theatre, New Earth Theatre, and with the various Filipino migrant communities and activists back in the Philippines: the intersection between the fascist regime in the Philippines and the UK’s hostile environment policy, the language of the hostile environment and rigid nationalist identity formations, migrant bodies, migrant narratives, and the brown and black migrant bodies as a site of the border of violence.

I am grateful with the English PEN for providing this space.

“It was from the dead body of my neighbour sometime in December 2016 that I was able to read that my country was undergoing a violent transition, paving the way for the return to power of the Marcoses. Blood was splattered on the same asphalt road that I used to tread every day, going to the market to buy my provisions, or walking to get my bus from the main road. The remains of what was once life were covered with blankets. His fingers were cold and stiff, like roots of ginger protruding oddly from the cover, as if trying to remind the neighbourhood of how to read his death: We are at war, I am the enemy. You could be collateral damage, anytime, soon. Take heed. It was at this moment that I realised that the popular, massive, nationwide project of creating and recreating a monolithic Filipino civic nationalist identity formation was moving closer and closer to my own body.“

You can read the entire essay here.

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.

The Leicester Secular Society annual Human Rights lecture series presents Rogelio Braga and Status Now for All

Activism, Community Works, Personal Blogs, Polemics

About this Event

The Leicester Secular Society (LSS) invites you to its annual Human Rights Lecture which, this year, will be given by Rogelio Braga, who is based in London and is an exiled human rights activist, playwright and novelist from the Philippines.

Titled “The Radicalization of a Woman Without a Paper: Status Now For All”, the lecture is free and open to all and is taking place as part of the 2020 Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.

Since the onset of the lockdown in the UK in 2020, Status Now 4 All, a network of almost 90 organizations, labour unions, and community organizations has been calling for the regularization of all undocumented migrants and those in the legal process living the country.

Using the study of Filipino women working as domestic workers in the UK which was conducted by Ella Parry-Davies, “A Chance to Feel Safe: Precarious Filipino Migrants amid the UK’s Coronavirus Outbreak”, as a springboard for narration and exposition, Braga’s lecture will emphasize the immediacy of regularization of all undocumented migrants and those in the legal process as a public health concern, reveal the narratives of those who are living in precarity under the Government-imposed lockdown, and explore the many voices calling for status now for all in the UK—the radicalization of a woman without a paper speaking to the void as a controlling metaphor.

About the Speaker

Rogelio Braga published two novels, a collection of short stories, and a book of plays before he left the Philippines archipelago in 2018. He was a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council for theatre in Southeast Asia in 2016. His first play on the human rights situation in Duterte Philippines, Miss Philippines, written entirely in English is currently under development commissioned by the New Earth Theatre in the London. He co-chairs Status Now 4 All, a network of rights and migration charities, labor unions, and community organizations across the UK campaigning for regularization of all undocumented migrants and asylums seekers living in the UK. He lives in London as a political asylum seeker.

About The Society

The Leicester Secular Society was founded in 1851 and is the world’s oldest Secular Society. Among other things, The Society defends rationalism and free speech, works for justice and fairness, and opposes unfair discrimination, bigotry and coercion based on factors such as beliefs, racial or ethnic origins, disability, sex, age, sexuality or lifestyle.

The Society holds regular speaker events which are also free and open to all. Past speakers have included George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Tony Benn and Annie Besant.

About The Festival

The Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival runs from 4 December through to 10 December every year.

The Festival aims to explore human rights issues through a series of events that are free and open to all and which include panel events, film, art, and music. The Festival aims to give people a platform through which to engage with human rights issues at home and abroad.

The Festival also aims to draw attention to International Human Rights Day which is celebrated annually, around the world, on December 10.

This year, The Festival will be highlighting:

i. Status Now 4 All, and

ii. Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020)

Register here

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.