Pugad Baboy

PUGAD BABOYmula sa Philippine Daily Inquirer Internet Edition

Why study (Filipino) popular art? by Edilberto Alegre BusinessWorld, 1 May 2002
Some have asked me why I bother with Pinoy pop art such as our movies, Max Surban, Yoyoy Villame, TV popular program? They are the hoary academicians of University of Philippines (UP) Diliman (Quezon City, Metro Manila), of course. And a few are architects in Cebu (Central Visayas) and other academicians there.
"Because they are our heritage too and probably say more about us than our copies of the seven arts of the West," I'd reply and refuse to go beyond that.
Their question manifests a haughtiness that should not be bothered with. They are not part of my small reading public obviously. Pinoy culture encompass all our products and actions and the distinction high art -- low art, literature in English -- literature in a Philippine language, music composed by a degree holder -- music composed ouido, say, are categories not made by culture analysts. High art, literature in English, or music composed by a UP College of Music graduate are also cultural expressions and are, therefore, legitimate concerns of cultural anthropology too.
They are studied amply by undergraduates, graduate students, scholars, and practicing art critics. They are also rewarded generously by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), our official cultural institution. And the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) continues to honor the Filipinos who excel in the seven arts of the West. Those who excel in the indigenous arts and crafts, such as kulintang music and abaca weaving, receive kudos and monetary award of a lesser degree. These manifest the hierarchy in the arts. Copying the west still pays.
The situation can change only by showing through force of logic and adamantine data that there is much to admire in not completely westernized Pinoy pop art. i.e. indigenized Western cultural borrowings. Examples abound: our movies, OPM, romance, novels, TV shows
Millions enjoy our pop art. Millions spend viewing, listening to or reading them. That should be valid enough reason to study Pinoy pop art. In contrast, the Pinoy version of Western art is enjoyed, viewed, listened to, or read by only a very minor trickle of our population. But they, the Pinoy copies of Western art, take a dominant position -- in our textbooks, in our mass media, in the eyes of our own government. Not because they are Pinoy, but because they are copies of the West.
That says a lot about our educational system, our mass media, and our government. What is common to these three is this: they are manned, managed, and operated by the ingliserong Pinoy, the Filipinos who are proficient in the English language. By the elite, in short.
The communication loop of the Pinoy version of the seven arts of the West consists of the artist as producer of art works which are "consumed" by the viewer-listener-reader appreciator. The artist is a product of an educational system which is biased toward the West. The consumer is also shaped by the same system. The middle person critic who explains, explicates, expounds and praises the art work derives his livelihood and reputation from the loop. The loop passes on their preferences to those outside of it via the schools, the media and the relevant government institutions which are also owned or managed or operated by the same socio-economic class, the rich inglisero.
The only way to counter this vicious, oppressive set-up without bloodshed is to present an alternative view that is acceptable, because it is logical and is based on field data, and therefore, incontrovertible. The viciousness derives from its spitefulness to anyone and anything which does not belong to the loop. It also stems from its erroneous reasoning: any art which is not Western or like the West's is inferior.
There are those who belong to the loop who go slumming outside of their vicious circle so they can entertain their kind about having gone "native", and, oh, how so very iba (different) the natives are! Some get their paper thesis or dissertation data from the natives and score pogi points for their promotion and prestige. Of course, after short, sporadic forays into the land of the natives they return to their lovely homes and lovely offices in which they have been ensconced. Such are the habits of class, so very difficult to break because they are so very good.
The said loop is oppressive since it bears down on the rest of our population and keeps the latter subservient by harshness and coercion, though the means to achieve this can be subtle and, therefore, appear to be neither harsh nor coercive. That elite has been in power for centuries and knows all the tricks to stay unchallenged.
To study pop art is thus, for me, an act of self-liberation. Unfortunately, I am an opsi -- math and my road to freedom started only 18 years ago when I boldly turned my back to the ways of the academe, where I was employed, and took the first steps to know who we are and what we are like.
I have never looked back.
The only equipment I had were those which I acquired in the academe -- traditional criticism, neo-criticism; structuralism, a bit of post-structuralism. Quite very Western apparatus.
However, I had an abiding passion for linguistics, the study of the laws which govern languages, since 1958 when I first enrolled in M.A. Comparative Literature in UP. It was my way to our culture. Language was what I had as data and for this there was no need to go to the field.
PINOY TIME AND POP ART
Using language as the starting point, let us examine our concept of time and its relation to art, pop or otherwise. How did we divide time? From the smallest to the biggest: araw or day (which we broke into, beginning from dawn -- madaling araw (dawn); umaga (morning); tanghali (noon); hapon (afternoon); takip-silim (evening); gabi (night); kahapon (yesterday); ngayon (now, today); bukas (tomorrow); buwan (month); taon (year). There are compound expressions for the day before yesterday (noong isang araw) and the day after tomorrow (bukas makalawa). These are time indicators though just like kahapon, ngayon, and bukas.
Time as a quantity are, strictly speaking, indicated by araw, buwan, and taon. A numeral or counter can specify the number of the days, months or years -- e.g. isang araw, dalawang buwan, tatlong taon (one day, two months, three years). Or the length of time can be one-half (kalahati, kalahating buwan); a fortnight or whole -- buo, buong araw, buong umaga, buong gabi -- meaning the whole day, the whole morning, the whole night, respectively.
Time as a quantity which can be measured to the tick of a second or minutes or hours is a Spanish introduction, as the words indicating them immediately shows: segundo, minuto, oras. Relo came from Spanish reloj. We also call the watch orasan, the suffix -an is a Pinoy construction. It was the Americans though who introduce wrist watch for that to the Spaniards is reloj de pulsera. Our term for it is riswats.
Our sense of clock time and the idea that time has to be or can be measured to the briefest second are borrowed.
The millions of Filipinos who do not punch time cards or do not have deadlines to meet simply ignore watches, clock time, and measurements of time. They are more numerous than the Filipinos who are tied to and enslaved by time machines.
Since time is a measurable quantity, in a linear manner an action has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Transferred to fiction, a narrative image of life, then the Western plot must have a defined beginning, middle, and end. Rising action, climax and denouement are logical aspects of time as a quantity or length, which is an expression of quantity, which moves in a linear manner from time1 to time2 time3 and so on.
American fiction is specially action-oriented. Action pushes the story forward. Overt action also depicts the character of the protagonist, of course. Western fiction is plot-oriented because the protagonist is unraveled in time. The unraveling requires conflict which leads to rising action, climax, and denouement or resolution (of the conflict).
This plot as a structure fits aptly for it rose from the Western concept of time. The problem of adaptation rises when we realize that that is valid to them, the Español and the 'merkano, but not to us. For we have a different concept of time. And must therefore have a different approach to or ideas about plot line and narrative structure.
The epitome of the action -- oriented Western narrative is the whodunit or detective story. That genre never quite took roots here.
The Rambo series is interesting but our hero is FPJ who's low-key in comparison. And always has a sidekick. Hindi siya nag-iisa (he is not alone). Hero that FPJ is, he is never alone. There is Dencio Padilla who is forever loyal and a lady love.
There is the terrible aloneness of all the Western tragic heroes -- Oedipus, Macbeth, King Lear, Loman, the American salesman. They experience a fall. Rambo might be on a different trajectory. But they, as all Western heroes, are alone. Time is a linear path which they travel or traverse. A beginning, a middle, an end. Rising action, climax, denouement.
We have no such tragic heroes. No such terrible aloneness. FPJ, Juan Tamad, Dolphy. Unlike the Western heroes, our main protagonist is always connected -- to one other, a friend or a lady love; to several others -- parents, sibling, family. Not tragedy but comedy. Not rising action based on conflict but melodrama. Less height and less acute on angle but rolling hills and flatlands.
Look at their sentence constructions. An explicitly named subject and a predicate, an action word, and, if required, a recipient of the action e.g. "I love you." There's no other way to say this. In our case, "Mahal Kita": verb, pronoun. Where went "I"? Literally, these two words translate as "Love you" (and that is how we say it, "I love you"; the very Pinoy English of "Mahal kita").
The relationship comes first, mahal. Kita is the distinctive "exclusive dual", second person, plural number, nominative case, in many Philippine languages. It means "I-and-you (singular) only" and nobody else.
Still on relationship. "Kumain na ko. Kinain ko yong natira sa mesa." (I've eaten. I ate what was left on the table.) Kumain refers to who ate. Kinain to what was eaten. The infix (-um, -in) depends on whether the speaker is referring to himself as actor or the object of his action. Speaker-self, speaker-object. A verb for us reveals not so much who and action or who object of the action, but the what of the action. Relationship, in short.
Too, we are not conflict -- resolution driven. We shun away from confrontations. Put this relationship -- driven in the same linear time of the West and what would result is not tragedy but a comic, melodramatic story. In that time line (t-1, t2, t3) he'd seek not ako, the nominative case, first person, singular "I" but "I" in it's many relationships: Juan Tamad and the princess. FPJ and Dencio and a lady love or FPJ and a daughter like Judy Ann Santos, Dolphy and his family who resides in a "Home Along Da Riles" (home by the railroad tracks) -- ako in kita, tayo, and kami (tayo includes the person addressed; kami excludes the person addressed).
We borrowed the movie camera and we came out with Pinoy na Pinoy movies -- weak on the plot structure, abloom with deep and meaningful relationships even if there are bakbakan (fight) scenes. Emphasis on the relationships. With and through the movie camera we have been telling our own story.
So with our TV soap operas. So with our OPM. So with our romance novels.
It would be folly to demand Western standard on these very Pinoy pop arts. What we need is a canon of appreciation so we can "upgrade" our popular art to academic, aesthetic criticism. We direly need theories about ourselves so we can better appreciate our own art.
Our concept of time and our "I" -persona, of course, created and continues to create our own form of fiction, movies, TV soap operas. Our own art, which very unfortunately is dismissed as just merely pop by the inglisero critics. But in the end they don't matter. What they are there or not our own art will continue on.
Instead of rising action -- climax -- denouement we should graph our di-pagkakaunawaan misunderstanding and our tampuhan, for which there is no English word. For these are the stuff of our daily lives which are there already embodied and expressed in our popular art. It is in our popular art where we truly are.
From http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/culture_essays.htm, accessed May 6, 2007.