Among the many unseen labors in cinema as an industry, it is film writing that occupies the most curious position. It often moves among three overlapping tendencies; it is either reduced to its purely commercial function where anything written about film is press release by extension, or it is that it’s dealt with animosity where any form of criticism is considered a hindrance to experience art and where artists, usually the director, has monopoly of meaning and interpretation, and lastly film is seen as something trivial that does not deserve rigorous academic investigation and methodical teaching. However in the context of the Philippines, a country with dismal archiving and restoration efforts and perpetually at the mercy of larger national film industries, especially but not limited to Hollywood, writing also functions as a formidable ally in preservation. Film writing is a form of memory keeping, especially when the screening is over. Gathered in this exhibit are books on Philippine cinema available from commercial, academic, and indie publishers at the moment, while a some are on loan from libraries and personal collections. It also doubles as a tangible proof from generations of writers and artists asserting that Philippine cinema is worth writing and thinking about. A similar preoccupation regarding legitimacy that is certainly found among emerging filmmakers from the regions.
The most important feature of film writing is its wide variation. This includes reviews, criticism, history, interviews, scripts, memoirs, among others. Some of these forms tend to dominate popular conversations, reviews especially, but they in fact mutually reinforce and inform each other. Significant also is to notice that one cannot approach Philippine cinema in isolation to other art forms and histories. It is no accident for example that pioneering scholars of cinema were first trained in theater studies, and responsible for laying out how conventions and practices have transitioned and persisted in film. This creative ecology also includes the mediums of komiks, radio, television, literature, the internet, and even fields that seem tangential like that of architecture and religion. In terms of connections, Philippine cinema has consistently been written about through transnational lens. Topics that have been explored covers genres and movements, colonialism and modernity, and how films have been controlled but also how they broke away from institutional mandate, especially that of the state. The transnational view also includes depictions of the Filipinos and the Philippines in foreign productions, and vice versa. When reading about these different contexts and perspectives, regional filmmakers and audiences will see that many issues at the present are actually permutations of those in the past. Film writing provides us with the wisdom of hindsight how cultural workers before navigated debates between art and commerce, between art and politics, or choosing to prioritize local or foreign audiences. Of course, an analytical frame doesn’t have to be maintained at all times, when reading these works we also relive earlier artists’ passion and brilliance as well as their frustrations and misgivings.
When one has immersed in Philippine film writing, one would soon realize that the regions have not been completely absent in national canon, though they are often romanticized or distorted. Seldom is the dialectic between the regions and the national capital the main focus of critical intervention in film writing. Kidlat Tahimik’s films for example exposes underdevelopment as a stand in for the countryside while also celebrating people’s resilience, Lino Brocka presents the despair of probinsyano or probinsyana characters corrupted by the big city, while also emphasizing the factors that pushed them out of rural areas in the first place, and lastly one can practically consider Peque Gallaga’s Oro Plata Mata (1982) as a classical Greek tragedy but it is also specifically about the sugar economy of Negros whose class antagonisms were intensified by war. The remedy to this regional absence is by making films from respective regions’ terms, this entails films using regional languages and examining immediate local realities. However stepping back from the national view, is only half the job. There are many efforts to produce film writings from and of the regions, and unsurprisingly the challenges in sustainably publishing them is twice as difficult, much like regional film making itself. As much as this exhibit shows what has been achieved in Philippine film writing it also traces the immense task of what needs to be done. Regional film writing shouldn’t settle on just ‘filling the gaps’, but be bold to challenge the idea of the national center, that of the national canon, or even our understanding of the nation itself.
The latest issue of Pelikula Journal has been released, where I have an extended review of the documentary Forbidden Memory (Teng Mangansakan II, 2016). An earlier version of which first appeared in this blog. The entire issue could be downloaded here.
In the early morning of December 9, I came across the news on X/Twitter about the murder of Refaat Alareer, translator, poet, and vocal academic against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. What was circulating was his poem ‘If I must die’ written and posted last November 1 on his account a few weeks after the start of the bombardment of Gaza. People from different parts of the world were translating it into various languages as a gesture of solidarity.
I translated it into Filipino, and express my intent to invite friends and frequent collaborators Jhio Jan Navarro and Carla Faith Aquino to translate it into Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a respectively. My translation, and later that of Navarro and Aquino, were overwhelmingly well received, and spurred more translations into other Philippine languages.
This blog post is to archive our translations in a different platform. A signature campaign by Filipino writers calling for ceasefire has been initiated here, while efforts done by Filipino groups to support the Palestinian cause are detailed in this article. The CUNY Graduate Center Program in English also gathered Alareer’s writings along with tributes into one PDF for circulation.
If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze- and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself- sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale
—Refaat Alareer
Kung kailangan kong mamatay, kailangan mong mabuhay upang isalaysay ang aking kuwento upang ibenta ang aking mga gamit upang ibili ng isang pirasong tela at ilang lubid, (piliin mo ang puti na may mahabang buntot) sa ganun ay may isang bata, sa isang dako ng Gaza na habang tinitignan sa mata ang langit at naghihintay sa kanyang ama na lumisan sa pagliyab— at hindi nakapagpaalam kahit kanino kahit sa kanyang sariling laman kahit sa kanyang sarili— ay masisilayan ang saranggola, ang nilikha mo, lumilipad sa taas at isipin kahit sa isang sandali na may anghel doon na nagdadala pabalik ng pag-ibig Kung kailangan kong mamatay nawa’y ito ay magdala ng pag-asa nawa’y ito ay maging alamat
—Salin sa Filipino ni Eric Abalajon
Kon kinahanglan ko mapatay, kinahanglan mo mabuhi agud isaysay ang akon istorya agud ibaligya ang akon mga pagkabutang agud magbakal sang tinabas nga tela kag pisi, (pilia ang puti nga may laba nga ikog) agud ang bata, sa kon diin nga bahin sang Gaza samtang ginatulok ang langit sa mata nga nagahulat sa iya amay nga sang pagdabdab nadula – nga wala makalisénsya bisan kay sin-o bisan sa iya lawas bisan sa iya kaugalingon — makita ang burador, ang burador nga imo ginhimo, nga nagalupad sa panganod kag makahunahuna bisan sa makadali nga may anghel nga nagadala balik sang paghigugma Kon kinahanglan ko mapatay, Kabay nga ini magadala sang paglaum Kabay nga ini mangin isa ka sugilanon.
—Salin sa Hiligaynon ni Jhio Jan Navarro
Kon kinahanglan ko mapatay Kinahanglan mo mabuhi Para magsaysay kang akën istorya Magbaligya kang akën mga gamit Magbakal kang sampanid nga tela Kag pira ka higot (Pilia ang puti kag mag may labëg nga ikog) Agëd nga ang sangka bata, diin man sa Gaza Samtang nagatangra sa langit Nga nagahëlat sa ana tatay na nga nagbiya nga nagalay-ab— Nga wara nakalisensya bisan kay sin-o Bisan sa ana kësëg Bisan sa ana kaugalingën— Makita ang burador, akën burador nga imo ginhimo, nagalëpad sa babaw Kag maminsar sa makadali nga ang sangka anghel rëgyan Ginabalik ang pagpalangga Kon kinahanglan ako mapatay Kabay nga magdara kang paglaëm Mangin kasugiran.
The latest issue of TRIPWIRE: a journal of poetics is now available for order. The volume includes four poems by revolutionary martyr Felix Salditos also known as Mayamor, which I translated from Hiligaynon to English. After a few months, this issue, like all previous issues of TRIPWIRE will be freely available for download. Sharing my introduction/translation notes for this project:
Mayamor is one of the pen names used by poet Roger Felix Salditos, who was active in the revolutionary movement in Panay Island, Philippines. Salditos and six other companions were killed in Antique in August 2018, in what authorities claim to be a firefight but rights groups contend to be more likely a massacre. According to the National Democratic Front, the ‘Antique 7’ was part of the underground movement’s education and propaganda staff. A few of Salditos’ poems have appeared in several party cultural organs, but most are posted in a blog he maintained. He primarily wrote in Hiligaynon, but his poems written in English were collected and translated into Filipino by another revolutionary poet Kerima Lorena Tariman, published in50: Mga Binalaybay ni Roger Felix Salditos(Sentro ng Wikang Filipino-UP Diliman, 2020).
Because of his revolutionary work, Mayamor has a distinctly casual and conversational tone in his poems. This makes translating him straight forward, but also challenging. Though Hiligaynon is also my mother tongue, I grew up in an suburban neighborhood. This is on top of being primarily proficient in English, and to much lesser extent Filipino, the languages of instruction in the Philippines. Those coming from middle-class or urban backgrounds would find Mayamor’s language archaic, though this variant is actually the one used by the sectors he has immersed with; peasants and indigenous peoples. That said, I retained the names of local flora of which he mentions several. This is to be expected since his poems tackle recurring subjects of hunger and making do in the country side. Translating them into English seemed unnecessary. In discussing political and economic concepts, Mayamor often derives English words into Hiligaynon and I simply reverted them back; ‘globalisasyon’ is globalization, ‘liberalisasyon’ is liberalization for example. His poetry is exceptional in how it concretizes historical materialism through the lived experiences of the marginalized, always expressed in accessible language. He describes losses in agriculture due to liberalization as a ‘sharp pain in the stomach’, while after discussing the harm done by pesticides he declares concentration of land ownership as ‘the true plague to society’. In translating these poems I want to get across that for Mayamor, revolution is not abstract but rather corporeal and urgent.
The second volume of Redila’s short graphic narratives is both a sequel and a spin off. Made up of six stories, either almost wordless comics or single panel sequences, they again tackle the fictional place of Meläg and its nearby environs. Aside from the first one, each story is noticeably much longer. If the Redila’s first volume appeared to be carefully composed poetic pieces, here we find deeper attention to characters and plot. Both of course are two sides of the same coin of his worldbuiding. Moreover, the first volume was distinctly guided by steampunk aesthetics, but this time, as some of the blurbs suggests, Redila takes on a more gothic tone, without completely abandoning the former. That said, this collection explores varying degrees of mystery and tragedy, and transformations both internal and external. The challenge and power of this creative choice is that, if transposed to a tropical setting, the gothic mood is harder to pull off. For example, it is much more difficult to discern since it is always sunny in the settings, more so in Redila’s signature black and white art. The gothic milieu is primarily mediated through young characters, or investigation of youth slipping away or held dearly. Carljoe Javier in his introduction, adds that the stories are ‘rooted in a sense of true childlike wonder, bound with an air of innocence and curiosity.’ This sense of wonder is also masterfully crafted into each story’s structure. Adam David in his foreword suggests to view the fantasy world of this collection as a diorama. ‘Masisilip sa malilit na butas ang mga pabulang nagaganap sa kanilang mga sisidlan,’ David writes. ‘Mag-uumpisa at matatapos ang mga kuwento sa tamang lugar at panahon sa mga guhit ni Bong, ngunit nauna na ito bago pa ito nag-umpisa sa pahina, at nagpapatuloy pa ito pagkatapos nito magwakas.’
The story Ang Bahay Apunan sa Mahamog establishes right away the figure of the young outsider which will be repeatedly be explored in the stories. He is different both physically and socially, and the two aspects reinforcing each other. Loreto is a gardener who observes his employer Karmen, while she teaches a class of orphans. He is in a unique position to not only see the facade behind Karmen as an authority figure, but also throughout the dark corners of the mansion. Mahamog literally means foggy, but the story takes place indoors. Following the gothic tradition, there is a high tower and a narrow staircase leading up to it. Here, Loreto and Karmen open up to each other, the former demonstrating his ability to remember and the latter her difficulty in forgetting. A simple and restrained exchange that truly transforms the mansion into a place of refuge. Dambuhala is another story that focus on the interaction of people’s lives and the landscape. The mayor of Marilag, a caricature easily recognizable through his barong-like shirt and his logic, decides to mobilize the entire community to build a wooden giant to attract progress, and to a certain extend, pride in the sleepy town. I remember finding the stories about robots a bit awkward in the Redila’s first book, what I consider to be grappling with the steampunk influence. Here, he comes on his own. Redila utilizes a somewhat obvious metaphor; the ceaseless cutting of trees will later usher in flooding. However in the Philippines, being in the geographic storm path and where logging and mining companies remain unchecked, this metaphor remains tragically urgent. The energy of building the robot reaches a magnitude similar to that of the Tower of Babel in its ambition and senselessness, only to be underwhelming after the robot comes to life and embeds itself between two mountains. A revision of the Bernardo Carpio myth, the giant blocked a deluge that came as the citizens flee to nearby Meläg. As the plot suggests, this is where Redilo’s most impressive drawings of landscapes can be found, simultaneously showing minute details as well as a terrain in flux. This makes up for an exhilarating read since the story is framed in the beginning with the cryptic ‘alamat ng Isla Higanteng Kamay’. Dambuhala is a remembrance of what is left in the flood. Sacrifice demanded by folly is seen underneath the landscape.
A sort of inverse to place-focused stories are ones about young characters, again very different in many ways just like Loreto. Ang Mapait at Maikling Buhay ni Marisol Dolores and Ang Muling Pagtahan ni Aurora Dante are about the resolve needed in growing up in an environment of hate, but also holding on to the kindness in certain people. Marisol’s story is told not just in single panels but also in a abecedary, requiring twice as much discipline. Marisol came into a world through tragedy, her mother dying after giving birth. She grew up destitute in the cemetery, raised by the town fool. An obvious nod to Lino Brocka’s Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974), where the townspeople are as cruel and hypocritical. The residents of Matamis are as indulgent as their place name, depicted as closely resembling 19th century colonial high society, bringing to mind the landlord class of Negros for example. Every misfortune is attributed to Marisol’s presence, when in fact the deaths can be traced to complications due to their diets. Communal self-ruin mitigated by projection. Marisol however did bring peace to Matamis, at the cost of her own. Aurora Dante is another orphan, abandoned beneath a small fountain as a newborn. She is taken care by an affluent woman, presumably an old maid who dedicates her whole life in taking of her. Aurora’s physical difference is hidden but done in way that coveys solidarity, attempts to extend the domestic peace between mother and child into the outside world. When her adopted mother passes away, Aurora flees from an harassment incident she now has to bear alone. She finds herself in the same fountain, hearing the same soothing music that signaled her life changed directions. Memories of her mother’s kindness console Aurora into not returning the hate she has received back into the world.
The structure of the stories dicussed so far always return to a full circle moment, but not as concise and touching as the one laid out in Sundo. A love story in two parts, it begins when a young man gets on the bus with his bicyle and a girl catches his attention. The otherwise mundane commute became something enchanting, just like in Redila’s earlier story PNR 24. The characters expressions and body language exhibit so much dynamism in such a small space of bare seats, the bare roof of the vehicle, and among indifferent passengers. They grow old, and the first section ends with woman passing away. The man carry on with life, riding his trusted bicycle towards a bus stop, anticipating a journey towards elsewhere. However this time, a different looking bus appears, one with a roof and capiz shell windows. A masked driver though stopping by, always says to the man, ‘Hindi pa ngayon.’ I never thought grief could be depicted in such a lighthearted and optimistic manner. Loved ones don’t get separated, but rather await eventual reunion.
The collection’s subtitle Balikbayan is a curious choice, but in the end a fitting one. The word literally refers to a returning Filipino migrant, trying to make do in an economic system where the state finds it easier to export workers rather than generate jobs locally. It carries several connotations, among them of celebration, if not of a final return, at least a momentary pause from the grind and the loneliness of working abroad. A word I’m certain that is emotive to Redila, who is based in the US but keeps close ties to the Philippines. Another layer would mean him returning to the stories of Meläg which, as David argues, have a life of their own. The figure of the nation and the process of migration is largely absent, but the stories in Balikbayan, in various tones and approaches, is all about finding one’s way home or creating it. In the end, intimacy and belonging are framed as collective aspirations, rather than merely individual desires. This takeaway is the one I cherish most, after this momentary visit to Meläg.
Meläg II: Balikbayan is available for purchase in the Adarna House official website, as well as their official Lazada and Shopee accounts. The first volume of Meläg is out of print in the Philippines, but has a US edition in translation titled Meläg: Town of Fables published by Fantagraphic. The translation of Meläg II: Balikbayan is also in the works.
Reflecting on the Tumandok massacre of December 30 2020, I wrote elsewhere that the incident didn’t register very long in the public’s consciousness because of the fatigue from scandals and several occasions of ineptitude of the Philippine state’s pandemic response, a lockdown considered to be one of the longest and the most brutal in the world. Similarly the pandemic is as if a ghost in the award winning short filmPanambi (Myra Angeline Soriaso, Jane Mariane Biyo & Katya Marie Corazon Puertoliano, 2021) which recreates the testimonies of women who witnessed the said massacre talk about their life and struggles. If they weren’t wearing face masks, you’d think the COVID-19 pandemic is non-existent. This juxtaposition, where one crisis seems to pale in comparison to another, is important to keep in mind when learning about the fraught experiences of the Tumandok people of Central Panay, it is simply another episode to the decades of their neglect and displacement. In an opinion piece written a few weeks after the incident, writer Rae Rival aptly asks, why is no anyone talking about the Tumandok massacre?Land and Life: The Tumandok People of Panay and Their Struggle, a slim book that functions as a history, testimony, and documentation all at once, responds firmly to this silence. Prepared by the Iloilo Legal Assistance Center (ILAC), with support from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the book aims to not just to prevent total erasure of the massacre from public memory, but also to assert that the need for solidarity efforts are far from gone.
Land and Life is made up of a primary essay that covers the long history of the Tumandok people, interspersed with generous amounts of photos and captions, along with two eye-witness testimonies of organizing efforts over the years. Since it is prepared by lawyers, special attention is given to the legal aspects of the Tumandok people’s experiences, but not to the point of being too technical for a lay person. In fact, the book takes tremendous effort to show a comprehensive view of a community. This includes brief discussions on language, cultural practices, artifacts, and economic livelihood. These details are integral to dispel the image of a tokenized indigenous peoples, and to show that the Tumandok have collective agency to assert their rights. They chant their epic poems and perform courtship dances, but ultimately they push back as community when control over their ancestral domain is at stake. Moreover, the narrative doesn’t begin in the massacre itself, but fifty years back. In the early 60s a military based was established in Central Panay on area covered by the Tumandok’s ancestral lands. After the land grab, they are then forced to pay tumado or rent to continue farming nearby. This begins the thorny relationship of the Tumandok and the state, especially with the military. Land and Life concisely connects various incidents of harassment, including deaths, of members of the community leading up to the unfolding of the Jalaur Dam project in the 2010s. A familiar pattern is exposed, indigenous groups’ lives, culture, and rights being treated as expendable for the state’s artificial version of development.
This history is complimented by two testimonies, twenty years apart, of participants to people’s assemblies organized by the community with help from progressive groups representing various sectors. If the attacks have been persistent over the years, so have been the solidarity efforts. Paz Garachico, writes in 1998, “It is very ironic that the government that has recognized the Tumandok as an indigenous people with unique and distinct cultural heritage is the same government that is attempting to drive them away from their ancestral domain through the intimidation of the Philippine Army. Two hundred terrified families evacuated due to military war exercises last December 1995. The same exercise wounded four Tumandok women and children when a mortar exploded. They took refuge in makeshift huts in the forest. Exposing the children and the elders to the elements and intense fear caused ailments.” Phillippe Angelo Hiñosa, meanwhile recalls his experiences immersing with the community, and highlights the dangers of the construction of the dam, “The Jalaur mega dam is endangered by an active fault nearby, landslides and a poor foundation at the construction site. A powerful earthquake could destabilize it and force it to collapse, drowning the Tumandok who live downstream. Meanwhile, those upstream could endure habitat degradation, reduced water quality, and unfavorable changes in biodiversity, which might ultimately lead to the extinction of aquatic species. Worse, it could accelerate climate change.” Hiñosa then attempts to come into terms with grief of learning that one of the community leaders he had meaningful exchanges about aggressive development in 2019 would be killed in the massacre the following year.
The book concludes detailing with the aftermath of the massacre, which I consider to be very important. Despite the gravity of the violent events, barely being one in the first place, the massacre inevitably stopped being ‘breaking news’. Pictures of the nine community leaders killed, along with those of the sixteen arrested, are shown with their names and the communities in Tapaz, Capiz where they lived. I don’t think any mainstream media outlet took this much effort to humanize the victims. The ensuing evacuation was also discussed, along with the spill over violence that occurred in early 2021 namely the murder of Julie Catamin, a community leader and key witness to the raid, and to the attack against Angelo Karlo Guillen, one of the volunteer lawyers representing the detained Tumandok. Weaponization of the law is most pronounced in these sections. For example, the investigation of the perpetrators is summarized, “The Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS) of the Philippine National Police conducted its own investigation on the bloody operation. In April 2021, it recommended the filing of charges for grave misconduct and grave irregularity in the performance of duty against 14 police operatives from Luzon who participated in the simultaneous raids. In June 2021, RIAS exonerated the 14 operatives who were charged because none of the families of the victims came forward to present evidence during the conduct of summary hearings.” Almost all the detainee have been release through the help of members of ILAC, however the communities still live in fear and under surveillance. Construction of the Jalaur dam is underway, and this time, the massacre is the ghost presence in the state’s press releases.
Land and Life is an excellent addition to the country’s long list of literature of solidarity. It is be best read alongside recent titles like Gantala Press’ Dawwang: Kababaihang Tagapagtanggol ng Kordilyera(2021), a comic book about Leticia Bula-at’s experiences of organizing against the Chico River Dam since the 70s, and the lessons imparted to younger generations of land defenders and allies who, just like the Tumandok, have to be vigilant even amid a global pandemic. On the other hand, Vijae Orquia Aquisola’s Awit ng Bakwit (Sentro ng Wikang Filipino-UP Diliman, 2019), uses poetry to tackle the experiences and perseverance of displaced Lumad children. This book is not merely a refusal to forget, but a challenge to carry on the fight for the rights and well-being of indigenous peoples. Land and Life, proves that we are not as far removed as we’d imagine to these stories of struggle.
There is a strong current of orality in the stories of Elizabeth Joy Serrano-Quijano, presented bilingually in her debut with translations by John Bengan. The pieces in Dili Pwede Mogawas ug Ubang Mga Sugilanon/Can’t Go Out and Other Stories are similar to narratives one has grown up listening to, they could be gossip heard or memories one reconstruct for one’s self. This is shared early on by Serrano-Quijano when she cites the influence of her grandmother and father to her love for storytelling. On top of this mode, it is the themes of permanence and mobility, and their various permutations that figure prominently. Why do people stay or leave, what motivates them, and what is the aftermath of their decisions. Particularly, movement is carried out by walking, taking the bus, or riding the habal-habal. These episodes remind me of the essays of Teng Mangansakan or the fiction of Rogelio Braga, where the traversing of space in a large land mass like Mindanao is both a setting and a subject. Since I only have an elementary understanding of the region’s geography, I had to look up the where exactly the places are. The stories unfold in Davao del Sur, namely in Blaan communities that are part of the neighboring rural municipalities of Magsaysay and Matanao. Both are approximately 30 kilometers to the provincial capital of Digos, and over 80 kilometers to the regional center of Davao City. Macario Tiu in his foreword writes that these “stories are raw, unadorned, and tell of real conflicts and struggles. We are fortunate that Joy has chronicled the dynamics of the socio-economic and political changes that are taking place in her hometown.” Meanwhile Bengan’s translation has maintained the casual and distinct language of Serrano-Quijano, and even kept some words and colloquialism in Bisaya as they are more effective rather than finding equivalents in English. He adds that these stories “are unmistakably of their time and milieu–Mindanao, at present.” Throughout this review, I will quote both Serrano-Quijano and Bengan. Aside from tone, themes, locations, and language explored, another consideration in the stories are their length which is consistently brief, each “a few hundred short of two thousand words” according to Bengan. Hence the ‘real conflicts and struggles’ tackled are done by Serrano-Quijano in a brisk and deflected manner often with slice of life approach, ending up with various results. This collection is a first of its kind, providing a portrait of a precarious reality and history to a region that seldom crosses the minds of people in centers.
Undeniably a lot of oral tales are cautionary in nature, often with gruesome and tabloid-like details or outcomes. Some of the best stories in the collection pushes this familiar, not to mention simplistic, format further. Aside from concise plots and quick pacing, these stories are a window to a social condition that is fraught in itself. In Pikpik/Tap, a young teacher seeks better opportunities outside her hometown, and finds it in a school two hours away. There she encounters sinister stereotypes still widely accepted, specifically of scheming residents wanting to poison outsiders through a simple touch. In a classroom, the students asks, “if it was true that there were sorcerers and tappers in Matanao. My eyes widened and I quickly denied the accusation. I was amused thinking about the various ways people from other places peddled false beliefs and spoke evil of other towns, like the often-heard story about Siquijor as the land of ghouls./ Nibalos sab silag pangutana kung tinuod ba na nay mamarang ug mamikpik sa Matanao. Misiga akong mata ug abtik nga milimod sa maong akusasyon. Malingaw ko maghunahuna sa mga tinuohan ug mali nga panghadlok sa mga tawo sa ubang lugar, sama pananglit sa sulti nga sa Siquijor daghang wakwak.” In the end, the teacher’s rational frame of mind would be challenged as she herself fell victim to an supposed attack. Ako si Robin Nabaro/I Am Robin Nabaro, on the other the hand, doesn’t need to dabble in folk beliefs to present horror in people’s daily lives. The protagonist, also a teacher, is on a bus ride from the city as she takes note of fellow passengers and the often chaotic scenarios of the long commute. In the process, she exposes her anxieties as well as her arrogant disposition. “Sometimes, it was scary and worrisome to take the Mindanao Star because of the accidents their drivers had been involved in. But it was the same with the passenger vans. Because of their reckless driving, a lot of horrifying accidents had happened, which were quickly posted on Facebook. You could clearly see the blood and brains splattered everywhere. That was why whenever I took the bus or a van, I never forgot to pray and looked up at the sky. Even if there was a fear of accidents, I had to go to Davao every so often to transact with GSIS, NSO, and other agencies of government./ Usahay makahadlok ug makabalaka kung mosakay sa Mindanao Star tungod sa mga aksidenteng gikalambigitan sa mga drayber nini. Apan mao man sad ang mga van. Tungod sa ilang pagdali-dali sa dalan, daghan na kaayog mangilngig nga aksidente ang nahitabo, nga tulin kaayong ma-post sa Facebook. Klaro ra ba kaayo ang mga utok ug dugo nga nagkatag. Mao na nga kung mosakay ko sa bus o van, di gyod malimtan ang pag-ampo ug paghangad sa langit. Bisan may kahadlok kinahanglan man gyod moadto sa Davao kay naa man didto ang GSIS, NSO, ug uban pang ahensya sa gobyerno.” During stopovers when passengers get the opportunity to relieve themselves, she dreads a possible terrorist attack, “Sometimes I’d think, what if there were bombs inside the bags that they left behind, we’d all perish. /Usahay makahunahuna ko nga kung naay bomba ang mga bag nga ilang gibilin, hurot gyod ming tanan.” Beyond the risk of accidents or violence, what gets her ire the most are people asking for alms that gravitate to public places like terminals for a captured market of sorts. One man in particular has been a mainstay of her commute episodes that she has come to memorize his script. She goes on her mind about laziness and lack of initiative, and even articulates the Anti-Medicancy Law to rationalize her obliviousness to what she considers an act. However, the harmful road infrastructure would later prove to her that what she percieves as being an upright citizen means next to nothing.
The dialectical relationship between reason and myth is present again in Ang Buntis gikan Zamboanga/The Pregnant Woman from Zamboanga, basically structured as a ghost story. The narrator, a young school girl who has to cross the river to get home, encounters an unfamiliar pregnant woman. She recalls an eerie story from her grandfather, one whose awful details has left a deep impression on her, much more compared to common stories of enchanted beings in the forest. This girl is another rationalist at heart, paying attention to the relationship of superstition and material conditions, “Further up our sitio, some children were taken to the hospital because of stomach pains. According to the village healers, the children had offended those-not-like-us because they played in the river and were making noise last Friday. But our teacher said that possibly the stomach pains were caused by the germs from drinking water. Maybe, it wasn’t the children or the engkantos’ fault that they had stomach aches. Maybe, the ones to blame were the parents who dirtied the environment./ Sa unahan sa among sityo, adunay mga naospital tungod kay nagdaot ang tiyan. Sumala pa sa mga mananambal, nakasala ang mga bata sa mga dili-ingon-nato tungod kay nagdula-dula sila sa sapa ug nagsaba-saba niadtong Biyernes. Apan ingon sa among maestro, ang sakit sa tiyan posibleng dala sa kagaw nga makuha sa inumong tubig. Tingali di sala sa mga bata o sa mga engkanto ang pagsakit sa ilang tiyan. Tingali sala sa ilang mga ginikanan nga naghugaw-hugaw sa kinaiyahan.” Remaining restless from the sighting, she asks her grandfather to tell the story with the figure of the pregnant woman again. As a young man, apparently he was a construction worker employed to build roads in the area in the mid-70s. In one phase of the project, the equipment suddenly stopped working while employees started getting sick. The only remedy to crises ending up being a blood sacrifice. He recalls in vivid details the incident of a woman’s death, “I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed. The noise of the cicadas grew even louder. The wind that slapped me seemed damp and smelled of blood. From the woods emerged huge monitor lizards with skin the color of gold and crawled over to the woman and in a blink, the dead body and the monitor lizards were gone!/ Halos di ko katuo sa akong nakita. Misamot kakusog ang mga huni sa mga gangis. Ang hangin nga mihapak sa akoa daw basa ug bahong dugo. Migawas gikan sa lasang ang mga kolor bulawan nga mga dagkong halo ug miadto sa lawas sa babaye ug sa pagpilok nako, wa na ang patayng lawas ug ang mga halo!” Perhaps myth is not the opposite of reason, but rather it’s underbelly. This is especially true in cases like that of massive postwar road expansions in Mindanao, nature is penetrated and changed forever. Even after decades, the life of settlers is one filled with hauntings. A parallel story that tackles communal unease, Gambalas Ago!/I Have Avenged Myself! unfortunately comes off more melodramatic rather than macabre. Again from the point of view of children, Serrano-Quijano skillfully inserts the social and economic dynamics of a small sitio in Magsaysay. A glaring fact is the need for children to work, “One of the ways children in Kanapulo made money was by doing raha or gathering firewood. The stores bought a bundle of firewood for five pesos, and sold it for ten. Because so many people were doing raha in Kanapulo, chopping trees and making charcoal were prohibited. The children and local youths were now doing raha in secret. As they said, “If you’re caught, you’re dead. If not, enjoy life!”/ Usa sa pangwarta sa mga batang taga Kanapulo ang pa-raha o pagkuha og kahoy aron ibaligya nga sugnod. Tagsingko ang palit sa mga tindahan sa usa ka bugkos nga sugnod us ibaligya nila kini og tagdiyes. Tungod sa kadaghan sa naga-raha sa Kanapulo, gibawal na ang pagputol sa mga kahoy ug pag-uling. Kawat-kawat na lang ang pag-raha sa mga bata ug mga batan-on. Ingon pa nila, “Kung masakpan, patay! Kung di masakpan, lipay-lipay!” The town was rattled when a widowed store owner got pregnant, igniting marital fighting in various households. The woman was later reported missing, and the incident is suggested to start a longer conflict between spouses, specifically the parents of the narrator, instead of closure.The final confrontation however felt unnecessary. We end up with a infidelity trope where one woman is pitted against another, where it would have been a more fascinating investigation of how a community is complicit in their silence after a crime.
Though presentation of issues are consistently done, there are evident stories where they are deliberately the take off point of the narrative. Dili Pwede Mogawas/Can’t Go Out, is about a child growing up in the middle of armed conflict between communist rebels and state forces. The title refers to an absurd rule of her mother, on top of their family’s already impoverished life. The child narrator again has casual innocence in making sense of her situation, “Mama didn’t agree that I’d be married off to our neighbor Randy. Mama wants me to finish at least high school. Will I be able to finish it? I’ve repeated grade three twice. Every week Id be absent thrice to help in the cornfield. My playmates are better off, they get to go with their Mamas when the 4Ps are released. We didn’t join the 4Ps because Papa won’t let us. We don’t know our birthdays and Ma’am Edna kept asking for my birth certificate. Mama said to me, you don’t have that because you can’t go out!/ Wa nisugot si Mama nga ibuya pod ko sa among silingan nga si Randy. Gusto ni Mama mohuman ko bisag hay eskul. Makahuman pa kaha ko? Ikaduha nako nibalik og grid tri. Sa usa ka simana, moabsent kog katulo kay motabang sa maisan. Maayo pa ang uban nakong kadula, maka-uban sa ilang Mama kung rilis sa 4P’s. Wa daw mi apil sa 4P’s kay di mosugot si Papa. Wa mi kabalo sa among birtdi ug sige nag pangayo si Mam sa akong birt sertikeyt. Ingon si Mama, wa mo ana kay dili ta pwede mogawas!” This narrative approach is paradoxical. By focus on a child’s perspective, and her parent’s avoidance of discussing matters in the open, we see an experience of war that is intimate and visceral, but falls short on comprehensively providing hints to the roots of insurgency or to the gravity of the state’s chosen response. The loss of innocence arc runs very a strong risk of perpetuating an ahistorical view of conflict, resulting the difficulty of imaging alternatives to what Serrano-Quijano described as a ‘ceaseless war’. This tragedy is interesting to compare to Baryo Tai/Barrio Tai, a story that has more hopeful look into the displacement being done in communities. The name of the place, literally ‘shit town’, is a moniker agreed upon by outsiders relying on two levels of meaning; a large presence of livestock and its overall poverty. It is worth noting that before the arrival of a mining company planning to set up operations, peasant families are already dealing with years of neglect, “The harvests had become less. Sometimes, the water supply was limited. The prices of pesticides for the rice went up and the interest rates of the loans for the pesticides were increased by the lenders. Before harvest time, we were already drowned in debt./ Nagminus ang ani. Usahay limitado ang patubig. Nagkataas ang mga medisina sa humay ug nagtubo ang interes sa mga nagapautang og medisina. Wa pa maani, nalumos na mi sa utang.” Caught between a rock and a hard place, the story illustrates how the state’s own incompetence is used to justify the ushering in of capital. In a town meeting with residents hesitant to sell off their lands, the barangay captain reasons, “My fellow barangay folks, before we think or say anything negative, we should listen first to the representative of the SAMARA Mining Company so we’ll know their plans. It can’t be denied that we are having a hard time with our water supply at present. The NIA keeps increasing the charges.”/ “Mga ka-barangay, una kita maghunahuna o mosultig negatibo, ato usang paminawon ang representanti sa SAMIRARA Mining Company aron sab madunggan ang ilang mga plano. Di ikalimod nga naglisod na ta sa tubig karong panahona. Nagkataas ang singil sa NIA” While local officials are bought off, the community, informed of other cases of environmental problems mining brings, came to together in resisting. It is very curious to see that the National Irrigation Administration is shown as unconcerned, but mentions the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) as having a more proactive role in empowering indigenous communities. In 2019, President Duterte appointed an ex-military officer that was formerly involved in a smuggling controversy in his prior position. Critics pointed out the frequent clashes between the military and indigenous groups, the glaring example being the massive evacuation of Lumad communities. Remaining in position in 2022, the NCIP chair red-tags indigenous groups resisting a dam project in the Apayao. There are other cases that posits that the agency often has a hand in facilitating the entry of corporations in resource-rich area under the ancestral domain of indigenous groups. Because of the story’s large scope, events are rushed and incidents occasionally heard in the news are filtered through. No mention of militarization, harassment or outright murder of resistant community leaders. The teenager narrating the story even pursues a degree in agriculture technology in the end, establishing the story as a liberal polemic to the manifold problems, one that reads a lot like a wishful fantasy.
Discernible by now, Serrano-Quijano prefers perspective coming from young characters. In stories where the point of view is that of an adult, it is alternatively nostalgic. This frame is largely due to the circumstances of adults who have pursued careers in urban centers and look back to their hometown fondly. I feel that this results to the compromise of the issues these stories try to raise. Ang Loyalista/The Loyalist is a recollection of a grandmother who had a life-long fascination with a figure of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The narration is so earnest and uncritical, that by the time a sense of irony is inserted in the end–admittance of a life-long material hardship, it seems that it didn’t have the impact it aims to achieve. It conclude matter of factly, “I might have not understood her being a Marcos loyalist, but I understood her abiding loyalty. If I would be asked whose granddaughter I am, without hesitation, my answer would be: “I am the granddaughter of Julia, the Blaan Marcos loyalist.”/ Tingali di man nako masabtan ang iyang pagka loyalista kay Marcos, apan nasabtan nako nga ang iyang pagka-loyal way utlanan. Kung pangutan-on ko kung kay kinsa kong apo, sa way pagduhaduha mao ni ang akong tubag: “Ako ang apo ni Julia, ang Blaan nga Marcos loyalista.” Meanwhile Kasiawa/Kasiawa, is a remembrance of a Chinese neighbor and his relationship to the community. “Siawa was the only Chinese man in our village. There were also Kapampangan, Ilocano, and Blaan, but the lone Chinese man was considered the most respected among the settlers in our place./ Si Siawa lang ang Instsik sa among sityo. Aduna sab mga Kapampangan, Ilokano, ug Blaan apan ang nag-inusarang Intsik ang giila ug pinakarespetado nga dayo sa among lugar.” This would have been a perfect venue to discuss migration paths and stories, or the role of a merchant class, often Chinese, in an import-dependent and export-oriented economy. The story however, settled on being an impressionistic character study.
In contrast to the fast action of most stories, the collection is actually bookended by narratives of permanence, similar but contrasting versions of peace. Abogmaya/ The Maya Birds functions like a procedural of routines in a rural household. Despite material hardships and conflict with family, the grandmother who mostly lives alone is content. This could be taken as due to her being in her twilight years, or simply humble acceptance of her place in nature. This is illustrated in her peculiar relationship with birds. “Tomorrow, the work continues, the work continues,” Adela said to herself. When she turned to look at the ricefield she saw that the maya birds had gathered again. Anger wasn’t what she felt for the birds. On her lips formed a smile. “Here come my visitors, but I must drive you away”/ “Ugma, padayon gihapon ang mga buluhaton, padayon gihapon,” matod pa ni Adela sa iyang kaugalingon. Paglingi ni Adela sa basakan nagtapok na pod ang mga maya. Dili kapungot ang nabati ni Adela ngadto sa mga maya. Sa yang mga ngabil nilutaw ang pahiyom, “Ania na sab ang akong mga bisita, apan kinahanglan ko gayod kamong abogon.” However the life goes on standpoint is pushed to its ironic end in Salibo sa Baryo Bagol/Rain Spray in Barrio Bagol, making itthe most poignant and enraging piece in the collection. Story of a mother trying to fix a window in her hut so the water won’t come in. She takes on jobs to make ends meet, and later applies for government aid, only to be rejected based on a technicality. In an interview for her application, a detached staff fail, or refuse, to see the deeper contradictions poverty brings. “Indeed, the people from DSWD arrive in our house. I answer them to the best of my ability. One of the things they notice is that we don’t have a toilet. One of them tells me that we really need a toilet because it is dangerous to just cover our shit with a coconut shell. It can be the source of many diseases./ Tuod man, niabot ang taga DSWD sa among balay. Gitubag nako sila kutob sa akong makaya. Usa sa ilang namatikdan kay wa mi kasilyas. Sumala pa sa usa kanila, kinahanglan naa gyod mi kasilyas kay delikado ang among pagtabon og bagol sa among tai. Mao unya kini hinungdan sa mga sakit.” Here, she and her family is one with nature, but not necessarily living with dignity. Fatalism is unveiled, and has deep roots in underdevelopment. Contentment in the first story is subverted, it is nothing more but making do.
I finished this book in one sitting. It is after all, as I’ve mentioned, fairly short and immensely engaging. The sheer number of subjects they exhausted will haunt you, though I think the treatment is done unevenly. What is certain is that Serrano-Quijano carries deep humanistic care about the people, places, histories she has encountered and has preserved the stories in an accessible fashion. The collection is an juxtaposition of the intrusion of capital, dysfunctional public institutions, armed conflict, poverty, and how all closely intertwined and inseparable. These fragments of perseverance and making do, are admittedly heroic but they also expose their own limits. I highly recommend this book to those looking for stories from the regions, and discover why such stories rarely reach the centers, or the national imagination, in the first place. An excellent gauge of the modernity the nation-state espouses after all, is to look not in its supposed achievements, but to those who it leaves behind.
This suite of seven poems is an erasure project based the first section of the book Paralyzing Summer: The True Story of the Ann Arbor V.A. Hospital Poisonings and Deaths(University of Michigan Press, 2016) by Elizabeth Zibby Oneal and S. Martin Lindenauer. The said section is also titled The Investigation. In 1975, two Filipina nurses, Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez, were suspects to several poisonings of patients, with some resulting to deaths, in the hospital where they work. The book recreates the baffling episode in a true crime-like narration based on testimonies, court records, newspaper articles among other sources. What I find fascinating with narrative is how the two subjects were presented, how the language and their story both reveals and obscures various discourses of US-Philippine relations. Throughout the first section of the book, I paid attention to the parts that directly refers to the Philippines, and to the two nurses. Each poem is titled with the chapter where the erasures take place. Notice for example, that the policy of US hospitals employing Filipina nurses was only contextualized in Chapter 3, and in the total of 18 chapters in the section, the experiences of the two nurses were only directly discussed in seven. Aside from the obvious theme of errors on the investigation pointing towards racist biases, the erasures attempt to expose the nuances of the Philippine state’s labor export policy that had its roots in the American colonial occupation. At that time of the events in the book, this policy was then being institutionalized by Ferdinand Marcos’ military rule, a regime supported by the US so the country could continue serving as an important Cold War outpost in Southeast Asia. The Investigation is a series of interdependent noir poems, with stakes larger than the specific lives or the specific incidents involved.
Chapter 3
Then, as now, too few nurses were being trained
hospitals that needed them seeking nurses trained elsewhere
A great number came from the Philippines
between 1966 and 1985 twenty-five thousand Filipino nurses immigrated to the United States.
nurses were eager to make the move seeing it as a positive career choice in terms of salary and experience
hospitals were eager to employ them
Filipino nurses were well-trained, conscientious workers
the Ann Arbor hospital was one of many employing nurses from the Philippines
Chapter 10
a slender, dark-haired RN, a native of the Philippines.
She, too, had been attending patients, she said, dispensing medications.
she had been standing near his room
she had given him his medications but no injection she had given no patient an injection that day. at the time of this interview
the nurse identified as having given him a shot just a few seconds he blacked out in respiratory arrest
recognized the nickname belonging to
Now she sat, another young RN from the Philippines.
She was small, slightly plump, and seemingly uncertain. Her dark hair was cut in a sensible bob. Her smile was shy. Her voice was quiet. Sitting with her hands folded in her lap, she spoke politely, answering questions.
She had been standing near the isolation room when the arrests began, she said. She went into the room.
to help with the resuscitation.
To make him more comfortable she had added extension tubing Then she returned
she explained what she was doing Possibly twenty or thirty minutes earlier, she said.
an unlikely suspect
It is easy to doubt that this small, courteous young woman,
sitting so patiently answering his questions,
could be responsible for a ghastly series of poisonings and murders
There are two scenes integral to understanding to the type of horror conveyed in Nocebo(Lorcan Finnegan, 2022). First, is when newly hired nanny – though a better term would be domestic helper, Diana (Chai Fonacier) brings breakfast in bed to her employers, husband and wife Felix (Mark Strong) and Christine (Eva Green). Both were surprised as they were still asleep. As part of her scheme to study the house, Diana tries to create small talk, but instead she’s called ‘intrusive.’ Second, is much later in the film when Felix starts to get bothered about how Diana appears to deeply influence Christine’s behavior as she has since then functioned as both doctor and therapist to her, through folk medicine in order remedy her mysterious illness. Felix goes into the Diana’s quarters late at night to confront her. Expressing her discomfort, and noting he is drunk, Felix declares that he can do whatever he wants since ‘this is my house.’
For a film that has no short supply of horror, both psychological and visceral, shown directly or through tension between characters, I find the aforementioned scenes the most dreadful precisely because both are realistic, not to mention common, scenarios in regards to live-in care work involving migrants, often female and coming from labor-exporting countries like the Philippines. On an economical sense, the set-up saves the domestic helper on living costs on the host country (in this case, Ireland), but as the same time it is conducive to labor violations like blurring of work hours or outright abuse. You are expected to work and live in a space never truly yours, and where you never totally take a break. Aside from the more obvious class and gender dimensions, this politics of space as a theme extends masterfully throughout Nocebo. To echo Slavoj Zizek, a good illustration in finding out what a horror movie is truly about is seeing what is left when you disregard the horror or fantastic elements.
One day, out of nowhere Diana arrives at Christine’s posh home claiming to the house help she asked for, from a recruitment agency presumably (though this procedure or option is obscured in the film’s narrative). Christine is a fashion designer, taking time off and appearing to be distraught after a fiasco at work, goes with it. The bewildered Felix, later gives in, and explains that his disoriented wife could use an extra pair of hands. When asked about his wife’s condition, he explains that she’s suffering from guilt. Diana immediately tries to win over the still uneasy family’s affection through her cooking. They admit unfamiliarity to Filipino cuisine but nonetheless appreciate it, while Felix talks about its ‘potential.’ Diana then strategically presents herself to be able to help Christine relieve her of stress through faith healing or folk medicine. The two lead women then play a game of domestic cat and mouse of who truly has the power over the other. I don’t think I have anything more to add to the discussion about the portrayal of the said rituals, especially since it doesn’t depart very far from the depiction in Holy Emy (Araceli Lemos, 2021).
Lemos’ debut film, not as publicized beyond film festival circuits, is a meditative story of Filipino migrant sisters living and working in Greece. It uses visually compelling faith healing procedures, such as extraction of objects though massages, to reflect on life and death. Nocebo is more deliberate and bold, pushing further the alarming visuals, such as in showing a black chick leaving or entering someone’s mouth to show transfer of abilities or power. Even I only read about this in Ricky Lee novel’ Si Amapola sa 65 na Kabanata (2011), but haven’t seen it in any Filipino horror films, which frequently tackles such rituals in a very sanitized manner. In such films, the figure of the Other is often being pinned on the rural folk as a default.
In both Nocebo and Holy Emy, the material roots, or the reason for persistence, of these folk practices in the present is ignored. In a recent study on health expenditure in the Philippines, people still resort to these alternative or traditional medicine practices because of the inaccessibility, or even the total lack, of public health infrastructure. Other ‘catastrophic’ steps explored by the researchers involve people begging politicians for financial aid (thereby reproducing patronage ties) and falling prey to loan sharks in times of medical emergencies. This presence of barely functional social safety nets is in fact also a driving force behind labor migration of Filipinos, personified in the occupation of Diana. What emerges is a global care deficit – one leaves to care for others, in order to care for one’s own.
As the film goes on, we further see these symptoms of underdevelopment in Diana’s flash backs. She flees the rural community where she resides as it is terrorized by paramilitary groups to usher in mining operations that are almost always foreign corporations. She and her partner find themselves living in a slum community in Manila, while she works in a sweatshop that manufactures garments. We see a lead hand ruthless to the women employees he manages, but bows down to a female foreign client, revealed to be Christine, once she demands an unrealistic production quota. An unmistakable delineation of unequal flow of bodies, goods, and capital through national borders, with clear winners and losers. Eventually Diana notices a work room in the large house and appears to be long inactive. She asks Christine if she also makes clothes, and she replies ‘I only design them’. It was quite predictable, but also so fitting that this is where the final confrontation between the two will happen. While there’s extra space in Christine’s home for her craft, Diana brings her own child to her crowded and poorly ventilated workplace.
Nocebo caused a stir online as soon as its trailer came out, with discussions especially zeroed on Fonacier’s accent as a marker of her othering. I feel that this turned out to figure very little in the film, as it took painstaking care to establish the social roots of Diana’s motivations. People might focus on the actress getting a break in an international film, but it is an Irish-Filipino co-production after all. The rituals however are exoticized to be sinister and Christine having a nightmares about a giant tick is a bit on the nose, though these might seen as a compromise to the genre’s formal demands. Interestingly, a feat that the film accomplishes is adding a transnational dimension to Rain Rain Go Away (Chris Martinez, 2011), a episode in the Shake Rattle and Roll horror franchise inspired by the massive flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy in 2009. The episode is about an affluent family being haunted by child laborers who didn’t survive the storm. I think very few people recognized the boldness of its critique and how well the plot and genre worked together to delivered it when it came out. An exception is Rolando Tolentino, in his review, later expanded into a journal article, arguing that in the unequal experience of calamities and its aftermath, horror serves as a wish fulfillment – where the underdogs actually have a chance to fight back and win a pyrric victory.
For contrast, a another film that comes to mind is The Maid (Kelvin Tong, 2005), where a Filipina domestic helper goes to Singapore for work, but soon tries to uncover the reason behind the disappearance of her employer’s former maid. Here, closure is conflated with returning home, and by extension, justice. After watching Nocebo, this feels like a cop out. The emotional turmoil that Christine suffers from isn’t going to redeem her from actual lives lost. Folk horror is commonly framed as when pre-modern forces intrude contemporary rational lives. Nocebo on the other hand, asserts that even this paradigm is a facade. What happens is that the modernity in the centers feed and is sustained by barbarity in the peripheries.
Towards the end of the closing credits, ‘JUSTICE FOR ALL KENTEX WORKERS’ appears while the tribute song Pugon by The General Strike plays. Unfortunately, a translation or context is not provided. Kentex is a manufacturer of flip flops in Valenzuela City, where a fire broke out in 2015 killing seventy two people. It is one of the worse fire incident in the country’s history, and is largely blamed on the poor working conditions in the site, included iron barred windows. The chorus goes, ‘Nagliyab itong kahon / kinulong at binaon / naabo sila doon / sa pabrikang naging pugon’ which loosely translates to, ‘This box was ablaze / imprisoned and buried / people were turned into ashes / there in the factory that turned into furnace.’ In 2020, after a long legal battle, company and local fire officials were found not guilty on the charges of reckless imprudence resulting into multiple homicides and injuries. Nocebo, even with all its flaws, is still a significant attempt to depict the horrors of global supply chains, and the quest for justice. Beyond representation, the film also provokes several other questions. How can stories mobilize others in the face of injustice? How to build solidarity ties in a international level? Urgent questions that should be answered not just in regards to cinema alone.
It would be very convenient to call Malayo Pa ang Umaga as a Filipino Edward Gorey or Maurice Sendak, whose works are also a mix of creepy and tenderness. The artist behind the pseudonym, identical to the Rey Valera song, who has considerable following in social media came out with the debut book Libing-Isa (Anino Comics, 2022). It is made up of eleven independent short comics that are thematically tied. A few are completely wordless, some are accompanied with text following either rhyme or meter scheme, and while mostly have a plain narrative. All stories, except one, are based on rural small town sensibilities, with scenarios that might be called folk horror — arguably the dominant horror mode in the Philippines even before the category has received its current amount of attention in cinema. The choice of subjects is best articulated in the afterword, “Ang labing-isa ay isang paghihintay at hindi ang hinihintay. At doon sa hindi napapansin, sa mga kalyeng nilalagpasan at mga pangalang nakalilimutan ako nabibighani- sa mga iniwan at inilibing natin bago tayo nagpatuloy.”
Aside from Gorey and Sendak, I would also like to mention Libing-Isa’s affinities to the work of Bong Redila and Julius Villanueva. Especially how they utilize genre, cyberpunk for the former and horror-fantasy for the later, as an approach to depict and mediate local realities as seen in Meläg (Anino Comics, 2016) and Ella Arcangel (Haliya Publishing, 2017 & 2018). Like them, Malayo Pa Ang Umaga doesn’t force or tokenize local icons and narratives into ready made templates, primarily known as foreign or Western conventions. Instead, reality is presented in such a way that is already frightening, done through emphasize or focus. Such as the haunting blurring of ghosts whether real or imagined, or everyday objects that appear innocent are reframed as sinister.
An immediate stand out is the second story, as it weaves strong imagery and powerful verses, taking on a subject that is both emotive and absurd. Pag-ibig sa Pagitan is told from the point of view of a carabao, one that is loyal and affectionate is suddenly plagued by deep insecurity when his owner, a young man, decides to marry. “Iniibig ko ang aking sungay/Matulis, matikas, at magara/Ito ang haligi ng aking sarili/Tunay itong kahanga-hanga” At the threat of his horns being sawed off, he flees. The former source of pride would later be a bitter reminder of his fear, in his eternal demise.
In the fifth story, Hindi na Ako Takot Kay Lola, a young girl narrates a relationship with her grandmother, even after her passing. The sinister figure creeps around her; below her bed, in the kitchen cupboards, while she hangs freshly washed bed sheets. The child however remains cheerful, “Mula sa dilim ay ramdam kong nakatitig siya sa akin,/pero parang hindi naman niya ako nakikita/Kahit ilang beses pa ako kumaway at ngumiti kay Lola ay wala siyang imik.” Turns out her resolve is rooted from coming into terms with grief. An even more lighthearted story is the tenth one, Ayos Ba? Another account filled with wonder about a child who presumably lived in a community near a public cemetery, and his bond with a friendly sepulturero or gravedigger. The two always point finger guns at each other, as the man works while the boy observes. Business of death has been ingrained to be part of life.
The most terrifying story is the one most subtle. The fourth story, Ang Kasaysayan ng Bigas, takes place in a dining room where a father enumerates the steps of rice farming to his blind daughter. However, the idyllic agricultural images in popular imagination takes a morbid turn. Rain fed fields are receiving a shower of bullets, a paddy ready for harvest has gravestones, and while rice being dried mats on the roadside beside them are corpses covered in drapes that might be rice sacks. Behind the father’s detached and mechanical narration, it is revealed that he is probably more involved in what is being done to countryside than what he is presenting to his daughter. To paraphrase what I think is a statement from Slavoj Zizek, one of the biggest horror in society is accepting that people who carry out evil are also loving members of their families.
Libing-Isa is a welcome migration or adaptation of Malayo Pa ang Umaga’s art fromonline to print. Instead of content that captures one’s attention for a few seconds before moving on, the book, though relatively short, elicits more contemplation. You will find yourself rereading it, either to catch details you missed in the illustration or immerse yourself once again to its eerie language. Malayo Pa ang Umaga has gathered or retold stories of the mundane and the nonsensical to rethink horror, ones that are hidden but also those out in the open.
Libing-Isa is available on the Adarna House website, and in their Shopee and Lazada accounts.
Hello there! I am a self-confessed book junkie who has an eclectic taste in books and loves to explore book shops & libraries. Have a look around and hope you enjoy it.
"The poems are the work of a profoundly serious temperament and a professional translator of world into word"-- Michael Salcman, Judge, Harriss Poetry Prize
Jacob Laneria 