The Four-eyed Journal » Jose-Rizal

It’s not about art, it’s about freedom

jhay — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 05:43:10 +0000

We may not agree with his art, but we have to respect his right to express his art, just as we have the right to express our objection against it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan nor a supporter of Mideo Cruz and of his art. I’ve only come to know about him when the news broke out about the angry criticism against his recent work at the CCP.

From what I’ve read so far, faithful Catholics and the clergy has every right to boycott, condemn and criticize all they want about Cruz’ work. The Catholic church has been doing this for centuries. Remember how they went against Rennaisance artists and free thinkers back then? It’s the exact same thing today.

More than a century ago, they did the same thing to one of our very own, Jose Rizal when the Church condemned him for writing the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. So it’s not really ironic that Rizal’s fellow alumni from UST is suffering through the same ordeal today.

And just like what happened to Rizal back then, the same thing happened to Cruz today, the goverment through the CCP, gave in to demands and pressure from critics and shut down the art exhibit. If that is not censorship, both by Church and State, then I don’t know what is.

Critics cannot even raise the case of Carlos Celdran here, as Mideo Cruz’s art was never exhibited in a place of worship. It was in the CCP, the secular government’s supposed bastion for art, culture and its unbridled expression. Catholics can not also raise the argument that even if it’s on government grounds, it used public funds to which they contributed to, so it cannot be used to offend the Catholic faith. A wake up call to all my fellow Catholics, we are not the only ones who pay taxes in this country. So the moment our taxes join the taxes from non-Catholic/Christian citizens, it becomes public funds and loses its religious color. Kaya nga ‘public funds’ hindi Catholic or Christian funds.

That’s what is disturbing here. Censorship. Both by the Church and the State. All of this brouhaha about art. A visual expression of one’s beliefs and view of the country and society he lives in. Then again visuals have always been the obsession of the Church and government in the Philippines.

They are obsesed in projecting images that everything is normal and fine so asking about what’s underneath, the truth and the reality is a big taboo.

Remember how the government built up walls to hide the shanties and urban decay of Manila when a US President came to visit? Remember how the Church is always renovating and redecorating its buildings while all around, its parishoners, the so-called faithful flock are languishing in carton boxes, scrap metal and other refuse crudely put together and called a house?

Then it plays high and mighty dictating to us all, what is art and what is not? Some folks are right, it’s not only censorship, it’s fascism and despotism at its finest. It may be blasphemy in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but last time I looked, blasphemy is not a crime, but expression that is protected under the Constitution of our democratic country and supposedly secular government.

My advice to all those who are against Cruz’s art or other art forms that you do not like nor agree to, look away, step away and move on. The art was never even intended for you to begin with. And nobody is forcing you to see it.

Jose Rizal from around the blogosphere - Filipino bloggers remembering Dr Jose Rizal

jhay — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 04:18:46 +0000

On this day, 114 years ago, Jose Rizal was executed at the then Bagumbayan, outside the walls of Intramuros. Now, we all know that place to be Rizal Park.

Had Rizal not been executed, that place would probably still be called Wallace Field thanks to the Americans. Rizal’s death has not only changed that, but it has changed our nation’s history forever as popular belief has taught us that it led to the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution led by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan.

However, Patricio Mangubat would like to clarify that it wasn’t so. He points out in his post at New Philippine Revolution:

As an historiographer, let me correct the popular perception that Rizal’s execution on the thirtieth of December 1896 sparked the 1896 Revolution. Far from it.

Rizal’s execution was not the trigger that led to the August Revolt. No. It was his arrest and detention that Filipinos interpreted as a sign that there was no other recourse but to fight foreign aggression.

Had the Spaniards allowed Rizal to live, history would have been different.

And history would have been different indeed, not only if Rizal wasn’t executed but what if it had been so except that instead of remembering his death every year, we celebrate his life and many of his other great achievements aside from taking a bullet for the motherland.

Take for example Penelope V. Flores’ insights on Jose Rizal as a teenager, taking inspiration from an oil painting done by his friend and contemporary Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo which provided a glimpse of the young Rizal:

He met Felix Resurreccion Hidlago, the painter. He sat for an oil painting. It is the 2nd picture above. Resurreccion captured the teen-aged José Rizal. Felix is the consummate interpreter of character nuances. This is my favorite Rizal portrait….impish, rakish grin, tousled hair–which he tidies most of the time–off-skilted tie, twinkling eyes as if contemplating on doing something silly: in general, of being such a lovely teen-age matinee idol.

Felix brought this oil painting to Manila and presented it to Don Antonio Rivera, Rizal’s uncle and Leonora Rivera’s father. Visitors came to admire the artist’s signature, not the image. It was after all signed by a Resurreccion. Paciano actually glossed it over. Only later, when viewing from afar, that the resemblance to his own brother struck him. Paciano had actually forgotten the image of a young teen-ager. All this time, he was projecting the aura of Jose Rizal as a Europeanized medieval gentleman: the ilustrado: upright and proper (in his cuerpo (Rizal never wore an overcoat, but was dressed in the impeccable European style frock coat).

The artist in his painterly manner, gave us the humanized young essence of Rizal seldom brought out by our Rizalist scholars who want to present to us an intellectualized Rizal forgetting that like our own teen-aged offsprings and sibings, he too went through the process of teen-aged ambivalence as he was training to be the Great Hero that he had become.

Of course when we talk about Rizal and his execution, we cannot not talk about one of the reason he got into trouble with the Spanish authorities to begin with.

Basically, the Spanish friars wanted him dead because of the novels he wrote which exposed their abuses and virtual dictatorship of the Philippines. Rizal was not only branded as a heretic, he was ex-communicated for being a Freemason.

Sustines E. Laplana dug a little deeper into this bitter relationship between Rizal and the Catholic Church. She started with an intriguing snippet of a supposed letter of Josephine Brackern accusing the Catholic Archbishop in the Philippines for bribing the acting Governor General of the Philippines, Camilo Polavieja!

Truly, Rizal had become an icon of our history, his influence reaching beyond his generation. This has led to many writers, historians and even the ordinary folk to muse what would happen if Rizal were still alive today.

For instance, EQualizer Post points out that Rizal had long proposed the best tourism slogan for the Philippines in that immortal poem he wrote during his last moments alive:

Farewell, beloved Country, treasured region of the sun,
Pearl of the sea of the Orient, our lost Eden!
To you eagerly I surrender this sad and gloomy life;
And were it brighter, fresher, more florid,
Even then I’d give it to you, for your sake alone.

…

My dreams, when scarcely an adolescent,
My dreams, when a young man already full of life,
Were to see you one day, jewel of the sea of the Orient,
Dry those eyes of black, that forehead high,
Without frown, without wrinkles, without stains of shame.

And what if Rizal, being an avid traveller, would say if he encounters the TSA upon arriving at an American airport? The Vincenton Post aptly says:

If he were alive today, this polyglot, who loved to travel, would have told America’s Transportation Security Administration: “Touch me not!”

Clever play on Rizal, his life, execution and his legacy, we all come back to why we even set aside a national holiday for him, that all of us, in one way or another be inspired by Jose Rizal to help our countrymen and our motherland to reach great heights. Just like Urish Peter Jain:

Dr. José Rizal’s remarkable characteristics or intelligences, amazes me, and inspires me to follow his footsteps, in helping him attain his dream, even in this century. Like Rizal, I wish to be an inspiration to others, in helping people, realize their dreams, by continuously making people believe in themselves. Rizal is very admirable with his linguistic skills, this also inspired me, to work more on my speech, writing, foreign language speaking, and translating. Rizal is a well-known phycist, and following his path, he has also played an important role in my life, in choosing the medical profession. Rizal, to me, is a person that I think, is worth emulating, for he has found it’s way not only into the hearts of all Filipino’s, but especially to the entire world.

One way of paying homage to Rizal is to visit his monument and explore Rizal Park, there are lots to see and you’d walk away from it with a lesson or two about the man and our history.

Rizal and the Valley Golf fiasco

jhay — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:51:09 +0000

The discussion has toned down a little but the mainstream media is still echoing the uproar of the local blogosphere on the Valley Golf fiasco and about how bloggers have rallied to the side of the dela Paz family after learning that they have been beaten to a pulp by the DAR secretary and his son the Mayor of Masui.

However, like in any democracy, the move is not without critics whom have argued that the bloggers’ act, has a bit of hypocrisy because when a middle-class family became the victims of abusive government officials, we were quick to cry wolf, grab torches, pitchforks and prepared for battle, so to speak.

However, the same crowd were silent, back when activists were being kidnapped and liquidated, farmers who have lost their lands and are starving to death walked hundreds of miles to get their voices heard and the country’s top official stole the ballot twice and continues to lie, steal and kill for her own ambitions.

Or as BrianB has commented in Filipino Voices:

To all our clueless middle class. Welcome to the Philippines.

When the politicos were going after the poor, their lands and their rights, what did the middle class do? Nothing. When the politicos went after the press, what did the middle class do? Nothing. Now they are starting to come at you and your previous apathy has made you as weak as puking baby.

As Butch aka Warrior Lawyer puts its, BrianB has a valid point but he begs to differ:

the reaction of the upper-middle class is wholly understandable as what happened to the De La Paz family hits close to home. It could have been us, one would immediately think. Not that I can afford a membership to Valley Golf (both the De La Pazes and Pagandamans are members) but I certainly have a few close buddies who are members and have been invited many times to drop by the place. And access to the internet platform that is the blogosphere, at least as far as creating compelling content is concerned, remains, like golf, to be a largely elite undertaking. Note that it was Bambee’s blog that alerted fellow bloggers and stirred up their passionate response.

And I agree entirely. This apathy (or hypocrisy ?) cannot be helped because the middle class is in the middle (duh!) of the social order/pyramid/pecking order in our society. They just go with the flow, especially if it will serve their own class interests, of which they are not always consciously aware of doing.

Again, this is not something new. It has happened before. In fact, it happened 112 years and two days ago.

The execution of the most famous member of the Filipino middle-class, which back then were called the principalia, in our history, the illustrado, Jose Rizal.

In their book, The History of the Burgis, authors Mariel N. Francisco and Maria C. Arriola in a comment on the execution of Jose Rizal shares the same way view as BrianB puts forward:

Rizal was not just another martyr. He was an ilustrado. His execution marked a transgression into their illustrious ranks. Thus did the ilustrados (finally!) shift their considerable social weight to the side of the revolutionary masses. Much as the burgis did after Ninoy Aquino’s assassination.

I’m not saying the dela Pazes are the modern day Rizals nor Ninoys but this little anecdote in our history reminds us of who we are as a people and why we are still in this God-forsaken third world-status.

A$$loads of link loves

jhay — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:23:59 +0000

Okay, okay. This post will contain lots of link love, as the title is dead give away, to new blogs and bloggers, a few interesting finds in the net and some age-old posts from this blog as well.

First of all, an interesting article by Manolo Quezon III; Si Rizal at ang Pilosopiya ng Pagtitiis which practically explains why Rizal was the ‘pacifist’ as contrast to Andres Bonifacio the feiry father of the Philippine Revolution. Personally, I prefer Bonifacio’s way of achieving independence and sovereignty over Rizal’s compromising stance. The speech by MLQ3 is a good read, but as far as I’m concerned, “Hanggang kailan ka magtitiis?”

This buzz about Rizal is of course brought on by the celebration of his birth anniversary today. Again, if I were to become president, I’d move the celebration of Rizal Day to June 19, his birth day so that we would remember and celebrate his life instead of killing him all over again everytime December 30 comes around. This idea has always been put forward by Philippine Commentary.

As for my own contribution to this fiasco, I’ll point out that Rizal is not the son of Adolf Hitler (hat tip once more to MLQ3) and my own original question, “Was Rizal gay?”

Enough of Rizal and history for now, let’s go back to the present, in fact let’s look forward to July 3, 2007 as an exciting event for bloggers is brewing right in the horizon.

A Blogger Event – Taste of Asia

There is a Food event for all bloggers interested. Aside from free food and drinks, goodies await attendees! We’re targeting 100 attendees for the event.

So Please join us. (ALSO FOR THOSE WHO HAPPEN TO BE IN TOWN). YOU MAY ALSO INVITE OTHER BLOGGERS

What: SM Hypermarket Invites Bloggers to get a “Taste of Asia”
When: July 3, 2007, Tuesday, 7:30 pm
Who: bloggers of any size, age, status or whatever
How: Just leave a comment on my blog
Why: To get a “Taste of Asia”
Where: Taste of Asia (beside SM Hypermarket), SM Mall of Asia

If you’re interested to join this blogger event please visit Aileen Apollo’s blog to know more. I already got my slot thanks to SexyMom. Registration is still open so go ahead and don’t be shy!

Finally, a viral link love scheme

Got this from Jaypee, since my blog has been idle for like 7 days and traffic has went down, this little viralink would do wonders.

Here’s how it works:

It was started by a blogger named Andy Coates and he calls it the Viralink. If you want your blog to reach a wide audience, you can join this link train. It will give you more exposure to other blogs and websites.

To join, just follow the instructions below.

1.) Copy and paste the entire matrix of â€œViralTagsâ€ below.

2.) Substitute the Host Tag and one of the â€œViralTagsâ€ in the matrix with your anchor text of choice containing your blogâ€™s URL. Please keep anchor text to a maximum of 3 words to keep the matrix size manageable.

3.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your link in one of their â€œViralTagsâ€, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Tagâ€™s anchor text (automatically the associated link will also be copied) and paste it over one of your â€œViralTagsâ€ below.

4.) Encourage and invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

==========start copy and paste here=================

Host Tag: Daily tech notes

Important: Once I get a ping back from you, I will add your anchor text and the associated link you designate as â€œHost Tagâ€ here, replacing one of the â€œViralTagsâ€ from the matrix above. As more and more bloggers copy and paste this matrix, the more backlinks you will have from your anchor text. If everybody who copies and pastes from your blog does the same, pretty soon this will spread and go viral. Remember, the sooner you participate, the more links you will receive!

==========end copy and paste here=================

Come on, join in the viral link train, or if you’re in the Philippine by July 3, 2007 join us at the Taste of Asia blogger meetup.

Lastly, if any of the links are erroneous, ping me and I’ll fix it.

A Gay Womanizer

jhay — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 23:08:43 +0000

“Bading si Rizal.”(Rizal is gay.) My tall friend mused with quite an authority. He said this after I shared to him, my discovery of an article last December that talked about the insane idea of Rizal, our national hero being the father of one of the most hated man in modern history; Adolf Hitler. Thanks again to the Filipino Librarian for the link. Mr. Manuel Quezon III has gone to the bottom of this crazy idea with this article.

Now going back to my friend’s smart-ass idea on Rizal being gay, he did presented some reasons to back it up. He started by making this observation; “Sa lahat ng babaero, siya[Rizal] lang ang hindi nagkaroon ng maraming anak.” “Of all the womanizers, Rizal is the only one who has not produced a number of children.”

True, Rizal did not have many children save for the one that Josephine delievered too early into this world, only to die later as a tragic consequence of Pepe’s misdemeanors. This is despite the fact that he is well known for having many lovers and flames everywhere he went.

To this I added the following observations of my own; Rizal was among the youngest in his family. He and Paciano were the only “thorns among the roses”,
and there is a considerable age gap between him and his older brother so Rizal grew up surrounded by girls. He was described as a “sissy-looking” boy with a low height and a huge head which according to my great Rizal course professor was the favorite target for his classmates who had a habit of throwing stones around.

All of this, came from the idea, that if a boy grows and lives surrounded by girls, some of the feminimity would eventually rub off onto him. If I’m not mistaken this is commonly held as a quick explation(acceptable or not) as to how a boy becomes gay.

So adding it all up, Rizal, is gay.(joke lang! )

NOTE: The above contains ideas, concepts and thoughts that are purely fictitous and do not necessarily reflect proper historical reflection and are mere products of our imaginations and a sort-of twisted sense of humor. I like to thank the tallest member of the DLSU-D SERVE volunteers for the wonderfully insane ideas contained in this entry.