Euro Filipino Journal

Marco Polo: An Untold Love Story

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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Marco Polo: An Untold Story heralds the arrival in August 2016 of the first major British-Philippine musical theatre production on the London stage. With words and music composed in their entirety by Roger Saldo Chua, the noted Filipino-Belgian singer-actor, the production has evolved and gained momentum since it was first unveiled to a small audience in New York. Chua’s sentimental attachment to a reimagined episode in the life of the legendary 13th century Venetian explorer has grown into a full-blown lyrique musicale; international preview performances in Manila and Paris during the past year have been warmly received. In London, the show is scheduled to run from 5th August to 4th September 2016 at the Shaw Theatre. 
 
An East-West romance in the purest sense, Marco Polo: An Untold Story is a tale of heroism in the service of true love, one with timeless, cross-cultural and intergenerational appeal. The international cast, hand-picked by Chua comprises some of the finest musical talents working in the theatre today. The show is well paced and compelling, with a beautiful, memorable score.  
 
Attached are additional information (including photographs taken at the recent Reflections of the Lord Mayor Dinner where we promoted the show),  but the production has been announced widely in the theatre press, including: 
 
Theatre News.com - <a href="http://www.theatre-news.com/news/UK/36088/Marco-Polo-An-Untold-Love-Story-to-premiere-in-London">http://www.theatre-news.com/news/UK/36088/Marco-Polo-An-Untold-Love-Story-to-premiere-in-London</a> 
 
TNT Magazine - <a href="http://www.tntmagazine.com/london/london-to-host-world-premiere-of-new-musical-marco-polo">http://www.tntmagazine.com/london/london-to-host-world-premiere-of-new-musical-marco-polo</a> 
 
Time Out - <a href="http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/marco-polo-an-untold-love-story">http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/marco-polo-an-untold-love-story</a> 
 
Musical Theatre Review - <a href="http://musicaltheatrereview.com/tag/marco-polo-an-untold-love-story/">http://musicaltheatrereview.com/tag/marco-polo-an-untold-love-story/</a> 
 
 
 
Gina McAdam  
 
External Affairs Director 
 
Marco Polo: An Untold Love Story 
 
07879648930 
 
Linkedin:  <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/gina-mcadam/2/838/7a0">https://www.linkedin.com/pub/gina-mcadam/2/838/7a0</a> 
 
Gina McAdam is a Freeman of the City of London and the Worshipful Company of Marketors
 
 
 
 
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Marco Polo: An Untold Story heralds the arrival in August 2016 of the first major British-Philippine musical theatre production on the Lon...

Filipinos Respected in Spain

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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Spain as a country is very much intertwined with the history and culture of the Philippines, having been its colonial master for almost 4 centuries, until the Philippine Revolution of 1898.  It remains an important destination for Filipinos who may want to see places and monuments associated with the country’s national heroes.  Nowadays a vibrant and active Filipino community lives, works and carries on as new Spanish-Filipinos. 
 
Ipinagmamalaki ni Consul General Cookie Feria ng Embajada de Filipinas ang Filipino community sa Espanya. 
 
Bukod kasi sa kanilang sipag at tiyaga sa trabaho, marami na rin sa kanila ang unti-unting nag-iisip ng negosyo upang umangat ang katatayuan. 
 
Malakas din ang impact nila sa mga Kastila na mataas ang tingin sa kanila at humahanga sa kanilang dalang kultura sa bansang ito. 
 
Maging ang matataas na opisyal sa pamahalaan ng Espanya ay mga Pinoy din ang hanap na empleyado kung mga pamilya nila ang pag-uusapan. 
 
Dagdag niya, “Their employers also are the movers and shakers here, diba? The mga government officials here in Madrid, their employees are Filipinos… when the (city) President’s nurse stepped down, I got a phone call from the secretary of the President asking me to find a Pinay to take care of her parents. Doesn’t that say something great about us, how Spanish think of FIlipinos…” 
 
Tinatayang may mahigit mga 45,000 Pinoy sa buong Espanya at bagama’t marami sa kanila ang nagtatrabaho sa mga bahay-bahay, marami rin ang nagpapatakbo ng mga establishments dito na nagbibigay sa kanila ng idea at experience sa business. 
 
Ayon kay Ms Feria – “It is a good indication of Filipinos trying to branch out from being employees to being employers and entrepreneurs, little by little they are growing, it’s a learning experience. You see that the establishments are basically one man operations you know and basically they are actually still catering to the Fil community; it would be nice to see them cater to the local community, the Spanish community, maybe by way of opening up restaurants, maybe other services for instance… A lot of Filipinos here we are the waiters in the restaurants or the cooks — why can’t they be the owners, they are the ones who practically run business… That would be the logical step.” 
 
Ayon kay Congen Feria ang importante lang dito ay marunong ka ng wikang Kastila upang makapag-business ka at makapag-take advantage sa mga suportang ibinibigay ng Spanish government sa mga migrante. 
 
Ang wikang Kastila ay hindi mahirap para sa mga Pinoy dahil sa ating kasaysayan, at dahil mula high school hanggang kolehiyo ay pinag-aaralan natin ito sa Pilipinas. 
 
Sa totoo lang nakatutuwang marinig na maging ang mga kabataang naglalaro ng basketball sa Madrid, pati ang mga manonood, ay Kastila ang usapan. 
 
Ang Madrid ay puno rin ng mga bagay-bagay na Pinoy na mabibili halimbawa sa mga antique markets o shops tulad ng paintings, carvings, mga mapa atbp na dala ng mga Kastilang nanggaling sa atin noong unang panahonm nang ang Pilipinas ay nasasakop pa ng Espanya. 
 
Mayroon din ditong mga permanent exhibits sa mga museo tungkol sa Pilipinas at ang mayaman nitong kultura. 
 
Hindi rin mahirap ma-inspire ang mga Pinoy dito dahil magpunta lang sila sa Avenida de Filipinas, sa metro Islas Filipinas, ay makikita nila doon ang rebulto ni Dr Jose Rizal na replika ng nasa Luneta, at mababasa pa ang kabuuan ng kanyang tulang Mi Ultimo Adios sa Kastila at Filipino, nakaukit sa plakeng bronze. 
 
Kinumpirma naman ni Ambassador Joseph Bernardo ang magandang katatayuan ng mga Pinoy sa Espanya. 
 
Ayon kay Ambassador Bernardo, “Napakagaling ng community natin dito. Wala tayong problema at iginagalang sila ng mga Kastila at mahal na mahal sila para silang miyembro ng mga pamilya.” 
 
Umaasa rin siya na lalong darami ang mga Filipino entrepreneurs sa Espanya pagdating ng araw.
 
 
 
 
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Articles Contributors Gene Alcantara Heroes History People Philippines Spain Filipinos Respected in Spain

Spain as a country is very much intertwined with the history and culture of the Philippines, having been its colonial master for almost 4 ...

War in the Philippines 1898

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battle of Alapan</td></tr>
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The Diary of Lieut X. 
 
Reviewed by Jun Terra 
 
Spontaneous 
 
He tried to see the events through the eyes of others, one of them, the pilot of one of the Spanish ships that sank. He interviewed participants as well as observers like the Frenchman, known as the Commander, who lived between Cavite and Manila, a long-time resident of the Philippines. More importantly he went on fact-finding missions. One of these occasions was when he and a party of nine went on board one of the American ships to survey the aftermath of the naval battle: “Each brought his own equipment for expedition, binoculars, cameras, pencils, note pads, etc. I am determined to scrutinize every detail..” he said. 
 
On May 30, he wrote: 
 
“We visited the markets of Binondo and San Miguel. There is an enormous crowd of Tagals and Chinese. Baskets full of fish and delicious fruits are everywhere…there is an abundance of lively colours and movements…people discussing among themselves…and yet fighting began this morning. very early, at Las Pinas, at the very threshold of Manila..” 
 
On June 7, our intrepid diarist observes: “Martial law is declared…there are a few speedy executions without trial…the atmosphere in the city is tense. The Tagals are not threatening the merchants, bankers and businessmen who are all foreigners…Aguinaldo could have benefitted from this bold coup de force if Admiral Dewey had not officially prevented him from doing so…Manila is no longer recognizable as the city it used to be. Escolta is sad almost desolate. The Chinese have fled, the shops are closed, there are no more strollers, no more buyers, no more coquettish ladies…and the off-key piercing voices of the Tagals, the mandolins the guitars.” 
 
Philippines’ central role in the Pacific 
 
Manglapus could not be more mistaken when he says that Lieut X “could not be expected to perceive through the mote in the eye of the Frenchman.” Far from it, throughout the diary, Ernest Motsch shows very sharp powers of analysis and strong sense of geopolitics. He looked at events beyond narrow French interests in the Philippines and the region. He saw the impotence of France to influence events in the Philippines with sadness, even as he noted the strategic importance of the country: 
 
“An incomparable situation now exists. Manila is the key to the Far East, being the geometric center from which all places radiate where colonies are of utmost importance to the powers with interests in the Pacific. With Manila at the center, having a radius equal to five days at sea, one can establish a circumference consisting of all the important commercial routes and all the trade between the north of Asia and the South of Europe, the Far East, Australia and the United States…The strategic importance of the Philippines in the Pacific is superior to that of the Azores in the European context. Besides this, the Philippines has a bigger surface area, a larger population and countless natural resources. These islands and Cuba are Spain’s most beautiful colonies…these fertile lands feed some 10 million and can sustain easily some three or four times that number.” 
 
And he analysed events in the Philippines within the wider context of the emergence of the vast Pacific Basin as one of the most important areas in the future history of the world. In another prophetic observation Lieut X could well have been speaking of today’s Pacific Basin where the whole of the world is once again rushing to control or at least be a significant participant in the enormous tradeopportunities in the area and partake of its riches, when he wrote: 
 
“Today, we are witnessing the creation of a new sphere of commerce in the Pacific. The immense basin which lies between the Russian part of Asia, China and Australia, on one side, ad the two Americas, on the other, is destined to be an area of immense wealth. From now on, the future is assured for those who settle in these areas, and power is assured to those who will rule over them. Europe in its blindness, does not realise that if England and the United States agree to dominate both the west and the western pacific, there will soon be no place left for other countries.” 
 
Does this not echo Seward’s panegyric, sans the rhetoric on America’s manifest destiny to rule the area, quoted earlier? 
 
His analysis of foreign contention over the Philippines uncannily confirms Mabini’s view that the Americans, the Spaniards and the Europeans coveted the Philippines. It is as though they read each other’s mind. Lieut X writes: “the struggle for the possession of the islands (July 26) has assumed such proportions that the United States would not know how to accept the loss of the spoils of war.” In the meantime, the various interests were waiting in the wings, ready to pounce should there be any mistake on the side of one of the principal protagonists: “the unstable situation is responsible for the feverish activities and nervousness of the Germans. This is also the reason for the friendship, colored with envy, shown by the British towards the Americans from whom they are still awaiting compensation for their services. Then there are the contrite and watchful Japanese. The appetites of all are whetted by the prey. Each one wants to take his bite and remove his piece but dares not, since each is fearful of the other.” 
 
He did not look at events only from one point of view , from that of the French, but from all the contending forces, giving a particularly sympathetic attention to the point of view of the Filipinos or Tagals as he calls them. 
 
Ameican Duplicity 
 
More pointedly, he saw that the Americans did not really come to help the natives but to replace the Spaniards: 
 
“I have been observing these Filipinos for almost a year. Once again they find themselves being oppressed, a state from which they thought they had been freed…they had not conquered the Spaniards but rather they found themselves once again beneath the yoke, except that this time their chains were riveted by the Americans…the Americans, desirous of becoming masters of the Philippines, are beginning to behave as the Spaniards did. They too are convinced that there is barely any difference between the natives and monkeys..” 
 
Anticipating Dewey’s testimony to the US Congress, Motsch says: “the Filipinos are only a pretext for securing a stronger position in the country. There certainly has never been a question of returning the islands to them.” 
 
In fact, from early on in his diary, he voiced out his doubts several times about American sincerity and intention, almost shadowing Mabini’s prophesies. On the other hand he also rebukes the Spaniards who “prefer vengeance to the most noble of interests.” “Spain,” he continued,”would rather deliver the Filipinos to the United States than recognize them as a nation born of her colonization. In spite of high-sounding words, the narrow-mindedness of the Spaniard is evident.” Each event, as it developed, convinced him of American hegemonic intent and European impotence before the advancing American juggernaut. 
 
Aguinaldo dithers 
 
His analysis of Aguinaldo’s actuations during this period and the direction which the events were taking should be another confirmation to scholars and historians of the need to re-examine more closely Aguinaldo’s role in the ultimate defeat of the revolution in the hands of the US, the new coloniser: 
 
“June 2, Aguinaldo has not lost time. Within a few days he has established a revolutionary government in Cavite…The American squadron is in no position to attack Manila. It has exhausted its ammunition and is waiting for new supplies…Asiatic cunning is not evident in Aguinaldo. He appears to have implicit faith in the ability of the Americans to bring independence to his country which shows a limited knowledge of history. One must hold to what one has, and if this is not done from the start, one eventually loses one’s rights to his possessions. As long as the American soldiers have not landed, Aguinaldo remains master of ths situation. With the arrival of each American regiment from San Francisco the threats to the young republic increase…the provinces around Manila are all in a state of rebellion… If Aguinaldo has or pretends to have, such confidence in the Americans, this is not shared by the Tagals. Actually they are neither for the United States nor the Spaniards, they hope to use one against the other.” 
 
In an earlier entry dated May 29 long before the American reinforcements arrived Lieut X underlined the revolutionary forces’ dominant position: “Essentially, the insurgents are at the moment the masters of the situation. It is their word that prevails on land.” 
 
Aguinaldo’s failure to analyse the situation properly and push on for the capture of Manila and the surrender of the Spanish authorities – when American reinforcements had not yet arrived, while they were short of ammunition, and while the enthusiasm of the revolutionary forces was at its peak, flushed by victories in the provinces and at the gates of Manila is an area that historians ought to study in detail. 
 
Why did he trust the Americans so much, despite being rebuffed by Dewey on several occasions? Why was he so obedient to Dewey ( “He was most obedient, he did what I told him to do,” said Dewey)? Did he enter into some secret deal, or was he just naive? Why did he not listen to the wise counsel of Mabini, and the demands of his own fighters who were in control of the situation and were ready to enter Manila? Had the revolutionary forces captured Manila and demanded surrender from the Spanish authorities, they would have been in a stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis the Americans and the international community. Why did Aguinaldo allow himself to be dictated by Dewey not to enter the city at this point when the revolutionaries had the upper hand? Capturing the city could have prevented the Spanish authorities from surrendering to the Americans and giving them the rights of a victor to occupy the city, and gain a foothold in the country. 
 
Lieut X admiringly observes the loftiness of spirit that propelled the Philippine revolution and how well the Filipinos understood it: 
 
“In their manifestos and their proclamations, as well as their gatherings, it is remarkable that the Filipino leaders are haunted by the French revolution. Added to this is a religious undertone which recalls the American independence. Whether one likes it or not, these Indians are talking of a republic, of liberty, equality, fraternity, of a natural law reminiscent of western concepts. All revolutions resemble one another, based on the vindication of an ideal and of human dignity. It says a great deal for the Filipinos that this sublime symbol is recognised.” 
 
“Prelude to the Fil-American War” 
 
In anticipation of things to come Lieut X observes the behaviour of the Yanks when they landed: 
 
“A considerable number of American troops seen at close range show no sign of order or discipline. It is obvious why the Germans look down disdainfully on them. They look like an army organised for manhunts…The American soldiers are hefty and tall but appear narrow in the chest in relation to their height….. It seems their Achilles heel is tuberculosis. These men who exude self-confidence are more comfortable wearing cowboy outfits than military uniform…they all wear gaiters and belts of cartridges. During the day they are in their best behaviour and pay for all their purchases. At night they rid themselves of their inhibitions, drink excessively and, when quite drunk on whisky, become unbearable savages, killing at the slightest provocation. They do not unleash their brutish behaviour on each other but on the natives. As soon as they see one, the manhunt begins. This sport enjoyed by these who champion humanity was inherited from their forefathers, who pursued the redskins and the negroes. This war has certainly given Americans the opportunity for magnificent manhunts in the Philippines and Cuba at very little cost.” 
 
In contrast he notes how in the areas controlled by the Filipino revolutionaries: 
 
“Order reigns in most areas in spite of the war and that a high level of discipline is observed. Some excesses, naturally, have been committed, but which war has ever been exempt from them? In any event, there have been no massacres or shedding of blood. 
 
Retaliations have been limited to certain forms of vengeance directed mainly towards the monks…A certain method is evident in this revolution. Their troops are not very different from the regular troops, and they handle their arms rather well…Neither does the discipline of the Tagals suffer by comparison with the mediocre standards of the Americans.” 
 
In another entry Lieutenant Aime Motsch notes that the Filipinos would not easily accept subjugation, since they were aware, after all, that they defeated the Spaniard forces in actual combat. He writes sagely: 
 
“The real wealth of a country lies in the people themselves. They represent the work force, the land, the culture, the enterprises all of which cannot be sustained without them…A Filipino rebellion is not simply a political movement, it has the capacity to stop life itself. This is why exploiting the Filipinos could be a grave error on the part of the Americans. If it is their intention to make the Philippines their private fiefdom, they will have to eliminate the Filipinos or reduce them to slaves.” 
 
With the Americans gaining the Philippines through duplicity and not wanting to relinquish this prize; given Spain’s unbending pride dictating it to cede the Philippines to the US at the Treaty of Paris, rather than recognise defeat in the hands of its former colony; and given furthermore that the Filipinos would not allow themselves to be enslaved once more so soon after they had freed themselves at great sacrifice, the stage was set for the Filipino-American war. 
 
In his last entry dated August 31, 1898, Lieut X prophetically writes: “If the Filipinos deserve freedom, all they need to do is to have a mass uprising.” The following year, war between the Filipinos and the Americans would erupt. 
 
This war that would determine the shape and direction of Philippine history in the 20th century broke out in February 1899. Towards the end of the first decade of the century when the war petered out, more than 250,000 Filipinos had died in a terrible war defending their revolution and brief independence. The Americans, on the other hand, gained the piece they needed for their grand design on the Pacific, and a rich colony whose economy, politics and culture they still largely dominate with the help of their native collaborators long after they have relinquished direct political control. 
 
 
 
The Diary of a French Officer on the War in the Philippines, 1898 by Lieutenant X, Translated from the original French by Marietta Enriquez de la Haye Jousselin, Published by the National Historical Institute, T.M. Kalaw St., Ermita, Manila, Philippines, 1994
 
 
 
 
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Articles Contributors History Jun Terra Philippines War in the Philippines 1898

Battle of Alapan The Diary of Lieut X. Reviewed by Jun Terra Spontaneous He tried to see the events through the eyes of others, ...

2nd Global Summit, Manila, 25-27 Feb 2013

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CFO Officials, (from left): Secretary Imelda M. Nicolas and Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona.</td></tr>
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Commission on Filipinos Overseas schedules 
Second Global Summit on February 2013 
 
Secretary Imelda M. Nicolas, CFO Chairperson, personally made the official announcement in front of a select group of news editors and reporters recently. 
 
“Following the successful first summit in September 2011 in Manila, we expect the February 2013 event to be even bigger; with leaders of the various global Philippine associations in attendance,” said Sec. Nicolas. “Preparations are underway as we speak.” 
 
For the second summit, the CFO has adopted the theme ‘Two Years Thereafter: The Best of the Philippine Diaspora’ in line with its charge to track the progress of the different groups’ diaspora projects since the first summit and in order to identify areas of synergies to enhance these groups’ contributions to Philippine development. 
 
A diaspora refers to the movement or migration of people away from their countries of origin, heritage or interest, while maintaining links with their homeland. 
 
Through its flagship program, Diaspora to Development (D2D) the Commission intends to institutionalize and maximize Overseas Filipino involvement in the socio-cultural and economic development of the Philippines through 10 major areas of interventions including skills and technology transfer, arts and culture exchange, educational exchange, business linkaging, diaspora investments, global legal assistance, advocacy, diaspora philanthropy, medical mission coordination, tourismin itiatives, and return and reintegration. 
 
With the impetus of the D2D coming from the hundreds of Overseas Filipinos expected to attend the 2013 Global Summit , the rallying cry “BALIKBAYANIHAN!” has been fittingly chosen by the event organizers. 
 
The summit also aims to promote networking among Overseas Filipinos in the different regions of the world and accelerate participation of second and third generation Overseas Filipinos in the country’s development. The CFO is the government agency mandated to promote and uphold the interests of overseas Filipinos and to preserve and strengthen ties with Filipino communities overseas. 
 
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uEQy5sXA8dDJUxevr6sPVJN3hqJWX7P1FC6YZAC4jSECllY65zjxYW_g0oOHtIOjqHeQet6rnmQfuphkQMORZu1rkg4Yhsk58vm-VPodL6_CcXdLpUbEPYY2gKTg4QmAk53NOhK1rla0/s1600/d2dpresscon1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uEQy5sXA8dDJUxevr6sPVJN3hqJWX7P1FC6YZAC4jSECllY65zjxYW_g0oOHtIOjqHeQet6rnmQfuphkQMORZu1rkg4Yhsk58vm-VPodL6_CcXdLpUbEPYY2gKTg4QmAk53NOhK1rla0/s320/d2dpresscon1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Convenors and sponsors for the upcoming 2nd Global Summit pose for a souvenir photograph at a press launch held at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City. From left: CFO Secretary Imelda M. Nicolas & Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona; Tricia Reyes & Anne de la Cruz (The Medical City); Timmy Jayme & Gil Chua (DDB Group Philippines), Abby Bauca (SMART Communications, Inc.); Ver Cuizon (Global Council) & Jonathan Huertas (SMART Communications, Inc).</td></tr>
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Convenors and sponsors for the upcoming 2nd Global Summit pose for a souvenir photograph at a press launch held at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City. From left: CFO Secretary Imelda M. Nicolas & Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona; Tricia Reyes & Anne de la Cruz (The Medical City); Timmy Jayme & Gil Chua (DDB Group Philippines), Abby Bauca (SMART Communications, Inc.); Ver Cuizon (Global Council) & Jonathan Huertas (SMART Communications, Inc). 
 
 
Among the major sponsors in the upcoming Diaspora to Development summit are the Department of Tourism (DOT), the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA), Dusit Thani Manila, The Medical City, Vibal Printing, ActivAsia, and DDB Philippines. DDB, one of the largest companies in the Philippine advertising industry, has also been appointed as the official communications partner and marketing arm for the global summit. 
 
For more information, please contact CFO through: 
 
Ms. Ma. Nicole Pangilinan 
Tel. No. 552-4764 
Fax No. 561-8332 
Email: npangilinan@cfo.gov.ph 
 
Ms. Honeyleen Novilla 
Tel. No. 552-4708 
Email: hnovilla@cfo.gov.ph 
or visit our website at www.cfo.gov.ph
 
 
 
 
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Articles Philippines Reports 2nd Global Summit, Manila, 25-27 Feb 2013

CFO Officials, (from left): Secretary Imelda M. Nicolas and Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona. Commission on Filipinos Overseas sch...

Exploring the Question of Counter Hegemony from or by Filipino TV

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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‘Poetry is what is lost in translation.’</div>
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Robert Frost</div>
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‘Poetry is what is gained in translation.’</div>
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Joseph  Brodsky, Nobel prize-winning poet</div>
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‘Poetry is what gets transformed.’</div>
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Octavio Paz, Mexican Nobel prize-winning poet</div>
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‘Ang pagsasalin  ay isang subersyon.’</div>
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(Translation is an act of subversion)</div>
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BS Medina Filipino fictionist, SEAWRITE awardee</div>
 
When the sizzling Mexican telenovela Marimar was translated/dubbed into Filipino (the Philippine’s national language) and ran in 1996 by the lowly government-owned station RPN Channel 9, it zoomed to the top of the ratings chart in the Philippines, stunning the executives of the country’smedia giant ABS CBN network (yearly income: 3 billion pesos) into disbelief. 
 
The ‘Marimar episode’ clearly stimulated certain radical changes in the country’s television programming but, more importantly, it also revealed the counter-hegemonic power of Filipino viewing audiences and their ability to translate and transform the received text and its televisual representations and the contexts from which these issue. In this paper, the researcher will explore this question of counter hegemony from or by the viewers of TV media and messages and how it confronts the most predictive forms of TV marketing or programming designed by the industry’s executives and practitioners. 
 
In media sociology and translation studies all acts of translation are essentially acts of communication. (Hatim & Mason, 1997) Thus, when foreign television programs which are translated into Filipino through dubbing and/or imitating or localizing are considered as acts of communication, the implications of their ubiquity in present-day Philippine television are instructive and enormous for scholars and critics of mass communication in our country, especially as academicians develop translation both as a profession and an object of criticism. However, research on telenovelas and other translated television programs remains nil in the Philippines. Why study the popular telenovelas and other popular foreign programs translated or appropriated into Filipino? Some scholars have asked this question.  Because it is there?  Such an answer may seem flippant but actually it is precise.  As the Filipino critic Isagani Cruz (1997;53) says in an essay published in the Philippine journal Diliman Review: 
 
‘The scholar who refuses to deal with popular culture soon finds himself a hyphenated person, an intellectual on campus, an ordinary human being at home. The true scholar must see his experiences [of popular culture and academic culture] as a totality not as fragments.’ 
 
In the first part of this paper, the researcher describes the ‘text’ as the foreign program translated into Filipino through dubbing and localizing, its televisual representations, and the production and consumption contexts within which it assumes life and power. 
 
In the second part of the paper, the researcher explores the counter-hegemony of the active television audience/the Filipino receptor of the text as consisting  in their ability  to translate the received text and thereby transform it and their receiving contexts. 
 
As an act of communication, translation in contemporary Philippine television can be categorized into two modes: first, the translation of Mexican telenovelas and Japanese animae into Filipino through dubbing and second, the translation or appropriation of the foreign program (Western, Asian and European) into Filipino by recreating or localizing its concept and format. 
 
Dubbing as an act of translation refers to a technique used to replace totally the originally recorded audio without modifying the video signal to communicate the message to the target audience; while localizing is an act of translation used to adapt a product to the language, cultural, and other requirements of a specific target environment or local market. 
 
Linguistic, politico-colonial, and socio-political factors have influenced the continued success of Mexican telenovelas and Japanese animae dubbed into Filipino and the localized and/or imitated television programs. These factors are everywhere present in the translated text’s televisual representations. It is clear that the use of Filipino boosted the popularity of Mexican telenovelas and Japanese animae since about 80 percent of local programs are now done in the national language. Reciprocally, the telenovelas and cartoons have also elevated the Filipino language to a commanding level of popular acceptance. 
 
Try to imagine a Japanese and/or a Caucasian character speaking in the native tongue, the sight of which, its televisual representation, could have not but only impressed Philippine viewers still famously or notoriously in the thrall of colonial mentality. 
 
One analysis often used to explain the phenomenal popularity of Mexican telenovelas is that of the cultural proximity to Mexico – that the Philippines shares with what used to be called Nueva España 300 years of Spanish subjugation and was even ruled by the Mexican Viceroy on behalf of Spain for a considerable period. 
 
Socio-political factors also explain how the televisual representations of the translated Mexican telenovelas have mesmerized Filipino audiences. The poor and oppressed, who constitute the majority of the Filipino viewing public, can obviously relate to the sufferings of Marimar. 
 
Since, in the Philippines, to be poor is practically a crime, the fact that in the telenovela, the poor protagonist is always being blamed for crimes perpetrated by the rich antagonists might tell us much about the immediate appeal of these melodramas. But Marimar and other well-loved heroines in the telenovela fight back: this symbolic resistance to oppression Filipino viewers have been known to like. 
 
Given this endemic situation of social crises and disappointment, the viewing public could not help but seek consolation and courage in these televisual representations that portray how they can fight back, even if only symbolically. 
 
A second mode of translation that has transformed the landscape of Philippine television programming is the translation or appropriation of foreign programs into Filipino by recreating or localizing the former’s concept and format. Dawson’s Creek is translated into Sa Tabing Ilog (By the Riverbank), Sex in the City into Attagirl, Charmed into Daddy didodu,  7th Heaven into Munting Paraiso (Some Heaven). 
 
One factor that explains this other phenomenon is that since the inception of television in the Philippines, government has never really set quotas on the number of imported programs (Kenny and Pernia, 1998; 79).  But since television has always been more of a local than a global medium, the numbers of foreign programs has actually diminished. (Jacka, Sinclair and Cunningham, 1996). Yet despite the rising popularity of local programs, it cannot be denied that foreign influence, particularly Western, continues to have a significant impact on the country’s television programming. This is manifested in the proliferation of foreign programs’ concepts being translated or appropriated into local versions. 
 
Centuries of colonialism, scarcity of new ideas, and the commercial nature of the television networks have also been cited as reasons for the abundance of localized programs. In this second mode of translation, a Filipino version would typically attempt to adapt the light entertainment and melodramatic televisual representations of foreign programs into local tastes and requirements. 
 
The Filipino version of soap operas has televisual representations of light entertainment since they put emphasis on glamour, on the use of scenic locations, and the presentation of upcoming and veteran stars. Minsan lang kita mamahalin (Only once will I love you), for instance, makes use of mansions with imposing staircases, uniformed servants, candlesticks on tables, and scenery of vast landed estates. The local actresses of Pangako sa iyo (This, I promise you), Madam Claudia Buenavista and Ms. Amor Powers, assume the same kind of glamorous countenance, with their impeccable make-up and fashionable clothes, which seem businesslike but which verge on extravagance. 
 
The melodramatic content of the localized soap operas, on the other hand, can be seen in the plethora of unexplained coincidences and last minute rescue scenes and astonishing revelations in the story and plot. Light entertainment and melodramatic elements are the known ingredients for a commercial hit in the Philippines; hence these are the widely used modes of televisual representation. However, due to the nature of these visual representations as commercial formulae, localized TV programs actually fail to relate their content to the state and needs of the audience. 
 
These translated texts offer the audience a deliberately artificial world. Women are characterized as housewives while statistics reveal that majority of Filipino workers are women. Situation comedy is always about the poor even though being poor is no laughing matter. Rich people are always burdened with love problems when in fact surveys claim that this is one of their least obsessive concerns. 
 
Why do these programs proliferate despite the fact that the audiences are unable to associate or identify the visual representations with their local context?  The answer to my mind lies in the power of the Filipino viewing audiences to receive the televisual text, critically translating, producing and reconstructing it to suit their needs and interests. 
 
Theoretical explanations that the audience is an active receptor/translator/transformer of the text can be found within ‘cultural studies’, most apparently within the encoding/decoding model developed by Stuart Hall (1980). Hall believed that the process of television encoding is an expression of linked but separate moments of production, circulation, distribution and reproduction. Each of this process, according to Hall has its specific practice that is necessary to the flow but does not guarantee the next moment. For instance, production of the text does not mean consumption of its meaning as encoders/producers of the message might have intended. Consumption of the text is always from the point of view of the person/audience who understands it. The receptor therefore, plays an active role in the construction of meaning by translating the text based on how she understands it. 
 
Hall (1980) also claimed that the audience consumption of the text is not ensured not only because of the process but also because the television message is polysemic. The television text is constructed as a sign system with various components. It carries various meanings; hence it can be interpreted in various ways. The text is however, ‘structured in dominance’ leading to a ‘preferred meaning’.  But since the audiences are situated in various social positions, they are able to decode/translate/consume the text in various ways. 
 
Following this, the researcher looks at the Filipino television audience as active translators and creators of the received text who cannot be fixed as objects of TV but rather as subjects acting their own narratives (Bhaba,1994) The researcher relates TV programming to what Bhabha identified as the pedagogical, referring to the national narrative that fixes people as objects with claims to historical origins, and Filipino audience reception to what Bhaba called the ‘processual’, which marks the people as subjects performing their own narratives in the day to day acts of living. These immensely helpful theoretical accounts allows the researcher to assume that Filipino audiences can produce their own meanings of the text depending on the way the text is structured and open-ended and on the particular domestic and cultural contexts involved. 
 
One may therefore read the prevalence of foreign programs translated into Filipino through dubbing or localizing as a manifestation that active Filipino audiences are able to transcend race and class differences.      One way to speculate the ability of the Filipinos to transcend race and class differences into novel situations is because under conditions of underdevelopment they have been coerced to uproot themselves and be rhizomatic, setting roots in new and often inhospitable environments. About ten million Filipinos live abroad, according to the country’s Labour Department while non-governmental organizations on the other hand put the figure as high as 7.5 million. Most Filipinos work in the Middle East, with the United States the second-most-popular destination, followed by other countries in Asia. 
 
A popular notion among Filipinos themselves is that the Filipinos’ ability to speak English and their Western- tinged outlook after years of Spanish and American colonization give them the capacity to transcend their racial confines. However, it is more than that. Oscar Campomanes (1998; p.2) recently explored the ‘globality’ of the Filipinos in a theoretical essay advocating the adoption of a new paradigm called Filipino Studies instead of the conventional Philippine Studies framework that limits the study of the Philippines as a national and culture area. 
 
‘The shift from Philippine to Filipino studies is more than semantic; it is, in fact, paradigmatic as I hope to suggest here. It is a position and a project that is premised upon the emergence of Filipinos as distinct constituencies and as articulate voices in the recomposition of American or global polities and socio-economic orders within the last three decades; that is, as Filipinos, in large numbers, now exceed the borders of the Philippines, as well as those of the United States and other countries where they migrate, work, settle, or create new identities, communities, and cultures.’ 
 
In the Philippines, powerful television producers can no longer dictate and/or predict what programs equally powerful audiences prefer. For instance, despite the popular notion that the telenovelas and soap operas’ target audiences are the economically poor majority, the upper middle class are also avid viewers of Latin American telenovelas. Even our former presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos have admitted to being regular watchers of  Marimar. 
 
On the other hand, those who are categorized as the poor and supposed mentally challenged Filipino audiences are devoted viewers of news and investigative television programs which are originally designed for the country’s middle classes.  As a result of these unpredictable audience preferences, news and investigative television programs are now using Filipino (the lingua franca of the Filipino masses) as the medium of communication; and advertisements which used to cater to the economically upper class such as credit cards and cell phones are now being shown during the timeslots of the telenovela and soap opera. 
 
Filipino audiences are active producers of meaning and not passive consumers of televisual commodities. Since it is difficult to speak with any exactness that the Latin American telenovelas cater only to the poor and oppressed who seek consolation in fairy tales; and that informative programs are only for the intellectuals and the rich, one can deduce that these audiences create their own texts from televisual representations filtered by their own critical consciousness, history, culture, sense and sensibilities and relating these to their particular contexts. For instance, with the localized programs, the visual images which represent the very glamorous life of the rich people might manifestly provide entertainment and amusement to the Filipino audience but this is only the first level of reception, for a translation of these visual texts ensues according to its relevance to them. 
 
The very relevance of formulaic scenes in localized soap operas is that, ironically, they allow Filipino audiences to lament these texts as unrealistic narratives – as shown by public commentaries elicited in television talk shows, surveys, restaurants, and street corners. The People Power experience is another indication of the fact that the Filipino audiences are able to translate the text, effectuate transformation, overcome class and ethnicity boundaries and ‘localize’. For the second time in 15 years, the Filipino people rose to overthrow a corrupt leader. In 1986, millions gathered on EDSA, Manila’s main avenue, to demand the resignation of dictator Ferdinand Marcos; on January 20 it was President Joseph Estrada, who was coerced to step down after four continuous days of mass protests. 
 
The immediate trigger for the four-day people’s revolt was the collapse of impeachment proceedings against Estrada, a mock trial witnessed by majority of Filipino television viewers from diverse cultural, political and economic backgrounds. The president had been put on trial before the country’s Senate in December after allegations surfaced that he had accepted more than US$10 million in pay-offs from illegal gaming. 
 
The televised proceeding, dubbed as the ‘telenovela of the year’, was telecast by major television networks. Then, on January 15, the Filipino audience witnessed how Estrada’s backers, who had the numbers in the senate, voted to exclude vital evidence, prompting government prosecutors to walk out in disgust. The pro-Estrada senators jubilantly cheered their victory — in front of a live audience of millions listening to and watching the trials on radio and television.  That night, the Filipino audience as an active receptor, translator and creator of the media message, spilled onto the streets with anti-Estrada banners and flags. All of these happened without the televisual text, for example, or the coverage of the developing political events, directly telling them to revolt. The country is broke and under such circumstances, the backers’ efforts to cover-up the president’s plundering of the country’s remaining 
 
wealth was revolting — this is the message that the Filipino audience created on their own. That night, the Filipino audiences transcended class differences and as a result, various cultural, religious, student and labour groups joined forces in an effort to transform their political context and oust a corrupt leader. 
 
With this experience the Filipino audience became confident. They have brought down the government with ‘people power’ before and they know it could be done again. In this case, the act of viewing was a live meeting between audience and text, between the two active producers/translators of meaning, during which an exchange of ideas between them generated new meanings, new texts and new political possibilities. 
 
Another indication of the ability of the Filipino audience to translate the text and transform the context is manifested by Filipino artists. A local critic and national artist Bienvenido Lumbera claimed that MTV Rock and Rap which are some of the most invasive forms of western popular culture that electronic media offer, ironically, are being used to provide a critical language by urban artists protesting against nuclear stockpiling by the US in the Philippines. Lumbera (2000;326)  observed that: 
 
‘Artistic creation in the Philippines is being shaped by the images that leap out of the screen and lodge in some corner of our consciousness until summoned by a related experience that needs expressing.’ 
 
It is this critical Filipino consciousness evident in the viewing practices and their ‘survival’ as well as localizing tactics that contribute to the making of Filipino active receptions/translations of text and the concomitant transformation of receptor contexts in the Philippines. The consciousness is in the Filipino history, for their history is a ceaseless story of struggle – against the Spanish colonization, then the Americans, then the Japanese, and now against abusive and corrupt political leaders.  It is in the Filipino language for they have the word tao, a very active word that does not discriminate, for it can refer to male or female, homosexual or heterosexual, a person or a group of people. It is in their being tao, in their capacity to survive, to struggle despite all the never-ending man-made and natural disasters, because Filipinos believe that they can transform not only the text but also the context in their day – to – day acts of ‘translations.’ 
 
Yes, television is a powerful medium in the Philippines considering that Filipinos watch about 200 minutes of television daily.  Yes, the prevalent television programs which are translated through dubbing or localizing are irrelevant to the Filipino’s needs, interest and problems. But audiences, the Filipino audience in particular, can translate and transform these ‘irrelevant’ texts, can ‘translate’ across class and ethnicity and make the irrelevant text relevant to their contexts and local conditions. 
 
Bibliography: 
 
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. 
 
Campomanes, Oscar. (1998). The Vernacular/Local and the Global in Filipino Studies. Institute of Filipino Studies and University of California San Diego. 
 
Cruz, Isagani. (1985). Splitscreen.  Diliman Review.  University of the Philippines Press. 
 
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1976). Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkeley: University of California Press. 
 
Hatim, B., & Mason, I.,  (1997) The Translator as Communicator.  London: Routledge. 
 
Jacka, Liz. (1996). New Patterns in Global Television, Peripheral Visions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (edited with John Sinclair and Stuart Cunningham). 
 
Kenny, Jim and Pernia, Elena.  (1998) The Filipino’s Window on the World. Asia Media Information and Communication Centre. 
 
Lumbera, Bienvenido. (2000). Writing the Nation/Pag-akda ng Bansa. University of the Philippines Press. 
 
Medina. B.S. (2001)  Sa Ibang Salita, Sampung Sanaysay sa Sining Salin. De La Salle University Press, Inc. Malate Manila. 
 
Rosario-Braid. (1987) Concepts for an alternative broadcasting system. Philippine Communication Journal. 
 
Hall, Stuart. (1981). Notes on deconstructing the popular. In R. Samuel (Ed.), People’s history and socialist history,  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 
 
About the author:  Janet Hope Tauro-Batuigas completed her Doctor of Arts in Languages and Literature (D.A.L.L.)  at De La Salle University with distinction and outstanding dissertation awards in 2000. She has been teaching since 1991 at De la Salle University.  Dr. Tauro has lectured about translation and television studies at Miami University in USA, University of Leeds in UK and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Also a journalist for  more than ten years, she has written investigative reports for Philippine Graphics, Starweek Magazine, Reporter Magasin and Village Voice. In 1988 she was sent to London by Star Publications Inc. to investigate on the proliferation of mail-order brides syndicates, the plight of the Filipino workers which were used as reference  for some of the related Congressional bills. In 1990 she wrote and produced segments for major television network ABS CBN’s The Inside Story on the situation of  separated single parents, the  sufferings of the  special children at Elsie Gaches and analysis of the country’s educational system among others.  As the head scriptwriter for Philippine Distance Education Corp., she has written and edited scripts for telecourses in education which were shown in PTV Channel 4. She was chosen as a Writing Fellow for short story by the University of the Philippines PANULAT in 1997 workshop and Writing Fellow for drama by the  National Commission on Culture and Arts in a 1995 workshop.
 
 
 
 
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Articles Contributors Janet Hope Tauro Batiguas Philippines Exploring the Question of Counter Hegemony from or by Filipino TV

‘Poetry is what is lost in translation.’ Robert Frost ‘Poetry is what is gained in translation.’ Joseph Brodsky, Nobel prize-win...

Balitang Kutsero

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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In an interview with ANC News, President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III said that he might pardon ex-prez Gloria Macapagal Arroyo if she showed remorse for the anomalies and scandals that had hounded her nine years in power. Yep, P-Noy told Gloria, “No remorse, no pardon!” 
 
After seeing P-Noy’s interview on her TV in her detention suite at the Veteran Memorial Medical Center, Gloria went to work and wrote her New Year’s Resolution. 
 
My investigative reporter James Macaquecquec, through his connections with Gloria’s jailers, got a copy of Gloria’s 2012 New Year’s Resolution and sent it to Global Balita. 
 
My New Year’s Resolution 
 
First of all, I would like to thank President Aquino for offering to pardon me provided that I showed remorse for the anomalies and scandals during my presidency. I am glad that P-Noy is keeping up with the tradition that I established when I pardoned former President Erap Estrada after he was convicted of plunder in 2007. I did it then out of my Christian upbringing, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” I have always felt that my ascension to the presidency was a divine providence; thus, it was just natural for me to forgive those who erred. 
 
But what bothers me is that P-Noy offered to pardon me even before I was convicted of bogus charges of election sabotage in 2007! How could I have sabotaged the elections in 2007 when I was not even a candidate? P-Noy claimed that I cheated because all the 12 candidates on the administration slate won in Maguindanao. Well, there’s only one explanation why all my candidates won – it’s because of divine providence! There is no other reason. I did not err. 
 
However, in the spirit of Christmas, I have decided to demonstrate that I’m still a human being prone to making mistakes just like anybody else. In the nine and a half years that I was President, I made a lot of grave mistakes, to wit: 
 
1. I regret ousting Erap from the presidency in 2001. As his Vice President, I should have helped him succeed instead of plotting to remove him from office. 
 
2. I regret appointing Leila de Lima as Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights. Had I known that she would bite me like a pit bull, I would have sent her to Tawi-tawi instead. 
 
3. I regret appointing Jun Lozada as technical consultant on the national broadband project. He turned out to be a whistleblower and exposed all the anomalies involving the NBN-ZTE project. Now, he’s going to testify against me in court. 
 
4. I regret not declaring martial law when I had a chance. If I did that I would still be in power and enjoying life in the Enchanted Kingdom. Now, my life is confined to a hospital suite with no kitchen, no telephone, no computer, and I am not even allowed to use a mobile phone. 
 
5. I regret not cheating P-Noy of the presidency in 2010 by fixing the Smartmartic automated election system. Mike promised me that if we did not cheat P-Noy, he would not prosecute us for graft and corruption. Mike was wrong! 
 
6. I regret coming back from my trips to Spain and Switzerland. If I did not return, I would have been free as a bird in Portugal where there is no extradition treaty with the Philippines. 
 
With my friend Merci Gutierrez impeached and resigned as Ombudsman and my protector Chief Justice Renato Corona impeached and may soon be convicted in a Senate impeachment trial, I have come to terms with my fate. 
 
With this silly gadget wrapped around my head and neck, I don’t have any options left except to put myself at the mercy of P-Noy. Yes, Mr. President, I am sorry for all the anomalies and scandals during my presidency. I was weak and indecisive and I allowed my husband Mike to the run the government the way he wanted it and did all those shenanigans. I tried to stop him but he became too powerful to be stopped. If there is one person who should go to jail, it’s Mike. 
 
I hope that P-Noy would pardon me. In good faith, I resolve to do the following: 
 
A. I will resign as Representative of Pampanga’s Second District. 
 
B. I will not get involved in politics for the rest of my life. 
 
C. I will ask Susan Roces for her forgiveness for cheating her husband Fernando Poe Jr. of the presidency in 2004. 
 
And since P-Noy only asked me to show remorse, I will keep the money I earned during my presidency. 
 
God is my witness, 
 
Gloria 
 
Jan 2012. Other works by Perry Diaz can be read on http://globalbalita.com/
 
 
 
 
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In an interview with ANC News, President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III said that he might pardon ex-prez Gloria Macapagal Arroyo if she showe...

David Medalla Shines at Royal Academy of Art

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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In his show held at the GSK Contemporary exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London, Filipino painter David Medalla showed why he is considered one of the top Filipino and indeed international artists of his time. 
 
His exhibited works at the famed Academy included a huge painting of Filipino fishermen at midnight, a virtual sculpture of Venus de Milo, and a handpainted silk scarf. 
 
The oil painting on canvas entitled “Night Fishing On Manila Bay” measuring 326 cms width x 193 cms height, and composed of panels, covered a whole wall of the venue and viewers will need to go back a bit in order to view the whole landscape. 
 
David Medalla, the artist with his short white hair and silk scarf, said —  “Alam mo ito, gumawa ako ng 24 na mga paintings ng buhay sa atin mula sa bukid hanggang sa lungsod, magmula  sa umaga hanggang hatinggabi tapos umaga  na naman.  You know, sa liwayway ng araw.  Nag-umpisa sa bayan, nung hatinggabi ganyan, naging  turning point.  So it’s a celebration of life in our country.” 
 
[Trans – “You know what, I made 24 paintings of life back home from the fields to the city, from morning to midnight until morning again.  You know, from the rising of the sun.  Starting from the town, then like this at midnight, it became a turning point.   So it’s a celebration of life in our country.”] 
 
His Venus de Milo is meant for active participation of the gallery-goer in the way they interact with the virtual sculpture.  The way the participant poses gives the impression of giving the world famous sculpted woman arms and hands which would otherwise be missing. 
 
Medalla has been living in Europe for more than four decades, and is based in Bracknell, Berkshire.  Ever since he was a student at Columbia University in the 1950s he was already known for what he calls ‘visionary art’ and performance art. 
 
Guy Brett, the art critic & author and long time friend of Medalla, in his black beret and glasses, said  – “Yes, well I’ve known David since 1960.  I met him in 1960 when he first arrived in London from the Philippines and I followed all the different phases that his work has been through but I know that he’s always painted from the beginning from the time that he was a teenager in Manila and he’s still painting.  Every now and then he produces a painting which  somehow has a style which is not really  like anybody else’s. “ 
 
 Looking at the fishermen painting, Brett said, “Ah so this is the first time I’ve seen this painting it tells me he’s still working on it.  It’s not finished yet.” 
 
In addition to the Royal Academy, Medalla was also the first Filipino artist whose work was purchased by the Tate Modern in the Southbank, for the whopping sum of £30,000 (around Php 2-3 million). 
 
This was “Cloud Canyons No. 3”, one in a series of his iconic “Bubble Machines”, which is now on permanent exhibit at the huge warehouse-like art repository by the River Thames. 
 
Another art historian/critic who was at Medalla’s opening, Alison Green, with her black swept back hair and dangling earrings, confirmed his role in modern art – “Ah I think this is a great opportunity to get to know David Medalla’s work.  Since the mid 1960’s David Medalla’s a major international figure in contemporary practice.  Except he’s done this by intentionally occupying the peripheries of art making and the art establishment and playing the provocateur in that relationship, ah challenging the viewers in terms of their preconceptions of art.” 
 
She continued, “What’s interesting about him is his longevity, the fact that he has continued to be innovative and to respond to challenges to himself and to his work and to continue in a way to stay relevant to what is happening right now.  It’s a major achievement, I believe.” 
 
Whilst his name is already known in modern art circles worldwide, Medalla continues to show his Filipino roots in his artistic creations, and on a more practical and nationalistic level, by continuing to hold on to his Philippine nationality and passport, despite having been a permanent resident of the United Kingdom for many years. 
 
Medalla was one of seven artists invited to bring out a limited edition of scarves so that art lovers attending the Academy exhibit could bring home an affordable souvenir with them.  Truly a limited edition, Medalla only produced 30 scarves and even at the rate of £120 each, the lot went very quickly. 
 
It would be very difficult indeed for any other artist to achieve what David Medalla has already done in international art, and with his exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art his name, and the country he represents, will take on extra brilliance. 
 
 
 
[Written in November 2008]
 
 
 
 
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In his show held at the GSK Contemporary exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London, Filipino painter David Medalla showed why he is...

My Father's Long-Sleeve

July 13, 2016 Admin 0

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It is called boxing day here in U.K. and the events that transpired more than ten years ago are still fresh in my memory. I remember waking up early and rousing my brother from his slumber so we could depart early for our hometown and taking with us father’s long sleeve he asked us to bring. I was singing ‘Joy to the World’ on arrival at the doorstep with some look of reproof from my aunt on that morning of Dec’94. Having slept and watched over our house in San Fernando (about 45 minutes away) with my brother the previous night and returning to our hometown the following morning, I did not know that something terrible had happened after we left for San Fernando. They did not break the news to me until some time later, as I had gone out to see a friend, leaving my brother behind. It was only some time upon returning back to my aunt’s (my mum’s sister) house and with them insistong I go to my uncle (my father’s brother) that I sensed a dreadful thing had happened. 
 
I did not want to go and I recall my brother confessing calmly that ‘Father is gone’, fatally shot the previous night and succumbing to his wounds that same evening. The day before- that was Christmas day, father was only speaking to us to take with us on our return his long sleeve in San Fernando for their reunion. I thought it was normal to have a reunion since it was the yuletide season and New Year was fast approaching… I did not know that that Christmas day would be the last time I would see him alive and that it would turn out to be a different reunion… 
 
As with our customs and beliefs we had to bury father’s remains before New Year. After internment we had to wash ourselves in the river with burnt rice stalks on coconut shell poured on our heads and allow the river currents to take father’s clothes, including his long-sleeves, downstream. We also had to eat boiled but unripe bananas afterwards and smoke our bodies with the burning banana peels. 
 
I found myself huddled in father’s bahay kubo (nipa hut) on New Year’s eve refusing to join in the revelry. Staying in the bahay kubo brought back memories because this is where he used to spend his time when he retired and had it planted and surrounded with fruit trees. 
 
A serious man and a strict disciplinarian, father also taught us to fear God and to be honest especially with money but most of all he taught me to love history and fear the horrors of war. Having lived through the war he would recount the yonder days of the Japanese occupation [I wish that if a time machine had been invented I would already have hitched on it to save my father and correct the worst mistakes I have made in my lifetime and re-write the dark pages of history]. 
 
<div style="text-align: center;">
~oOo~</div>
 
The season reminds of how the Philippines and America awoke to a new day when the Japanese fleet attacked Pearl Harbour on December 8, 1941, when our forefathers had to spend a different Christmas and New Year to fight as guerrillas. In his Christmas eve address to the American people in 1941, Roosevelt asks ‘how can we light our tree, how can we give our gifts…in a world at war, a world of fighting, and suffering and death…how can we put the world aside to rejoice in the birth of Christ?’ 
 
Indeed, how can we celebrate Christmas day and even New Years day with gladness in our hearts when South Korea and the Pacific is under threat of Nuclear attack, when we are living in a sham peace, when the spectre of a nuclear holocaust a thousand times more devastating than the atomic bomb is looming everyday around the world. The words of Albert Einstein is apocalyptic ‘I know not what weapons will be used in World War 3 but I know that sticks and stones will be used in World War 4’. We have seen the devastation caused by the atomic bomb to the population of Hiroshima and it serves as a grim reminder of what war can do for humanity. I stumbled upon this thought-provoking poem against war written by Martin Niemoller, a German anti-Nazi activist: 
 
“First they came for the Jews. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. 
 
Then they came for the communists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a communist. 
 
Then they came for the trade unionists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist. 
 
Then they came for the Catholics. But I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. 
 
Then they came for me. And by that time no one was left to speak up.” 
 
Then they came for the communists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a communist. 
 
Then they came for the trade unionists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist. 
 
Then they came for the Catholics. But I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. 
 
Then they came for me. And by that time no one was left to speak up.” 
 
Then they came for the communists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a communist. 
 
Then they came for the trade unionists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist. 
 
Then they came for the Catholics. But I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. 
 
Then they came for me. And by that time no one was left to speak up.” 
 
Then they came for the communists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a communist. 
 
Then they came for the trade unionists. But I didn’t speak up because I was not a trade unionist. 
 
Then they came for the Catholics. But I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. 
 
Then they came for me. And by that time no one was left to speak up.” 
 
The Nazis had set out to annihilate an entire race with their hatred of the Jews bringing it to a fateful conclusion when more than 60 years ago in answer to the ‘Nazi Solution to the Jewish Question,’ more than 6 million Jews were sent to their deaths by mass extermination in what is now called as the Holocaust. I pray that the this dark page of history will not get resurrected and rear its diabolic head again. I hope and call to mind the fervent speech of civil rights leader Martin Luther King in 1963… ‘I have a dream that the brotherhood of man will become a reality… when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles will be able to join hands and sing “free at last, free at last”….’.I say amen to the fulfilment of this dream—when this vision becomes a reality, when this dawn has arrived …when we will be free at last of our greed and bigotry, when we have risen above our prejudice for our fellowmen. When our troops and our Muslim brothers in Mindanao, the NPA’s and world leaders have embraced and decided to make lasting peace their New Year’s resolution can we truly celebrate Christmas with all of its meanings and call this year a truly New Year. 
 
While the birth of Christ, the Prince of Peace has been told and re-told many times, I am nonetheless glad to tell a parallel story I’ve read some years ago. A Hindu man was said to be walking one day in a field when he saw an anthill. A man was plowing that field and the Hindu man saw that it was heading directly towards the anthill. Being a Hindu he considers all creatures sacred even snakes and insects and he wanted to warn the ants of their imminent destruction. But how, he can shout but can the ants hear? He can write in the soil but can the ants read? Then he understood, that for them to understand him and warn them of their destruction he must first become an ant. We were the ants and in His humility He chose to be born not in a grandiose palace but in a lowly manger and in His love for us He became man. 
 
~oOo~ 
 
Kudos and more power to the performers of Pater Noster, a seafarers’story and play written by Ramon Tenoso and presented by Philippine Theatre U.K. which was shown last Nov 10-12 at Theatro Technis. It was truly an insight into the lonely life of a seaman, my brother being a seaman himself (I had an overnight stay in their ship catching squid when it was moored in Bataan some years ago but this was just one of their activities when not watching films). Some of the scenes were poignant especially the last part when the wife of Captain Zamora (played by our editor, Gene Alcantara), died. [On the subject of death I have asked myself where the dead go and was skeptical about ‘reincarnation’ until I have watched ‘The Boy Who Lived Before’ featured on a BBC documentary. I looked up and found several books in Waterstones whose author/s hold excellent journalistic/medical backgrounds who have done research and corroboration on children’s testimonies recalling past lives in India and Lebanon. Although their findings were not easy to dismiss as fantasy I still need evidence for a Filipino that was reincarnated. Indeed, we are just passers by here on earth and like actors on a stage have different roles to play but the love we give and how much we have loved is all that matters and all that is cherished when we cross that river were our ancestors have gone before us…] 
 
Do we see a future Philippine Bollywood here? We can only hope so…I have faith that noble things sprout as a seed …As a kid I remember going to the plaza during our town fiesta to watch the zarzuela and playing the part of a shepherd in kindergarten to enact what took place more than 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. 
 
I wish that you had a blessed Christmas and will enjoy a prosperous new year and “on earth peace, goodwill towards men” Luke 2:14… I also want to impart this text I received on New Year’s day – ‘always remember…life is short so 4giv quickly, laugh & luv uncontrollably & never regret anything that made u smile’. 
 
[2007]
 
 
 
 
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It is called boxing day here in U.K. and the events that transpired more than ten years ago are still fresh in my memory. I remember wakin...

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