YOHOO BAGUIO!!! weeetweeew..!
♦ Dying for a Hamburger: Modern Meat Processing and the Epidemic of Alzheimer’s Disease by Ray Waldman & Marjorie Lamb
♦ Farm Fatale by Wendy Holden
♦ Gross News: Gross (but Clean) Stories from Around the World by The Sander Family
♦ Holy Ghostbuster: A Parson’s Encounters with the Paranormal by Kelwyn Roberts
♦ I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It by Charles Barkley
♦ Legends, Lies, & Cherished Myths of American History by Richard Shenkman
♦ Sex as a Second Language by Alisa Kwitney
♦ The Alarming History of Medicine: Amusing Anecdotes from Hippocrates to Heart Transplants by Richard Gordon
♦ The Church of 80% Sincerity by David Roche
♦ Till Death Do Us Part or Get a Damn Good Lawyer by Lynette Bowens
Exploring Ideology in Teodoro’s “The Undiscovered Country” *
Luis Teodoro’s short story, “The Undiscovered Country” dramatizes how ideology constructs socio-cultural conditions. Although this short fiction is not clearly situated in a specific time and place (perhaps hinting at its allegorical nature – i.e. the places, events, and characters picture out situations wherever and whenever nationalisms contend with imperialisms), this essay operates on the idea that Teodoro’s work is a Marxist critique of the prevailing socio-cultural order of the time covering the year in which the short story was written (1968) and the decade or decades immediately preceding it. The delineation of this historical period is based on the major assumption or interpretation that Dr. Olvido, the main character, is a Filipino married to an American (Anne). To bolster this assumption, parallel historical facts are dovetailed with some of the details in the story.
Marxist theorist Louis Althusser propounded that ideology is a system of beliefs or ideas which, operating through “ideological State apparatuses” (schools, media, judicial and legislative institutions ,etc.), governs the lives of people. This system constructs an illusory “reality” that masks existing socio-cultural contradictions.1 This power relationship, adds Antonio Gramsci, is wielded by a “ruling bloc” and is effected not only by force but also by the consent of the ruled.2 “Ideology,” as used in this study is thus equated with Foucault’s concept of “discourse” (a set of power-conferring and rule-making ideas and practices).
One of the ideologies interrogated in the story is the Humanist type which presents humans as creatures of free will, an idea that is debunked by the text right at the start when the following is said of Dr. Olvido (p. 93)3:
…he was convinced – as many men were, alas, convinced – that he was free and possessed the capacity to make a choice…he lived in an age in which the prime illusion was the belief that men, though they lived dark and demented lives, possessed these completely as they possessed objects…
As Olvido gazes at the ruins of Aurangzeb’s empire (p. 93), he asks: What mortar could keep the edifices of civilization intact? What forge could create an iron permanence? These questions point to his illusory ideals of permanence and the soundness of acceptability of the status quo, and therefore to his insipid academic pursuits that are out of touch with reality. In subscribing to a humanistic, idealistic ideology, he was clapped with intellectual blinders and has refused his ailing country’s call for societal, institutional reform.
This ideology works through the Academe where Olvido seemed to have found himself insulated from the harsh socio-political reality he lives in. Here, the classroom is a secure place where one is awed at the certitude of scholarship and the autonomy of a professorial job, as shown by Anne’s fascination with her husband’s lectures (p. 97). But this sense of stability and autonomy is an illusion for, as the helplessness of Dr. Olvido in the face of Dr. Hooke’s impositions on the “new graduate school program” would show, Olvido is actually under the hegemonic influence of those who hold the purse (pp. 106-107).
The library, too, is another “cool shelter” where, “[s]urrounded by the concentrated learning of the ages in the towering book stacks,” one experiences a “flood of peace” (ibid.). In this comfort zone, “The comfortable smell of old books and the hum of the fans” (ibid.) can lull one to sleep – a scene which can symbolize one’s yielding to the opium of an otherwise oppressive academic or political setup.
But just as “sharp rays of light [would stab] like bayonets into” a library table and a wind could invade the silence of the library to awaken the sleeping book reader (p. 97), so would the raw scenes of poverty and injustice outside the academic walls force one to be aware of a larger world where emaciated children beg (p. 102), where workers forced to labor at night accidentally fall to their deaths (p. 106), where one gets slapped by warm air that comes as a “furnace blast” and deafened by “the roar of traffic” (p. 105), and where one cannot fail to see the forboding darkness beyond the lights and glass windows of a classy diner.
“Nothing,” Dr. Olvido utters twice in response to his wife’s gesture of concern as if hoping that by saying so, the problems of his country would go away. But his frantic escape with his car from the scene of the dead worker who had accidentally fallen from a scaffold, as well as his disturbed breathing in bed , would betray his sense of guilt.
Another ideology critiqued in this work is American Exceptionalism which Mark Slouka defines as “the myth of ‘America as an elect nation, the world-redeeming ark of Christ, chosen, above all the nations of the world, for a special dispensation.’”4 In the 20th century, the catch phrases “White Man’s Burden” and “Manifest Destiny” were powerful ideological tools that conveyed what Servando Halili would call “a racialized ideological and representational discourse.”5 This imperialistic drive of the U.S. government was strengthened by the rise of militantly anti-Communist Evangelicalism in America in the 1950s as embodied in its poster-boy, Billy Graham.6 Religion as a tool to escape from reality or justify political ends may be referred to by Anne’s appeals to God (p. 102) in her hour of perplexity.
US hegemony over a vast geographical area, including the Philippines, was sustained by this discourse which finds its voice in the wife of Dr. Olvido’s visiting colleague, Herman (pp. 103-104). She is identified as coming from “one of the western states” and one whose smile is indicative of “one who, venturing from the metropolis of the world, has seen much of the rest but has misunderstood it” (p. 103).
She speaks condescendingly of “this part of the world” where traffic snarls and the hot climate are unbearable, where lawlessness abounds – in other words, where “rights and things that are sacred to [her and her people] don’t mean anything” (p. 105). She paints a benevolent picture of her country, but where she sat the world outside wails for the abuses of her government in this “othered” society.
This depiction of a civilized hegemonic culture (in this case, the US) is greatly mediated by mass media or popular culture. This is indicated toward the end of the story where Anne, as she speeds away in a plane from the turbulent country of her husband, watches on TV the “clean and beautiful images of the men and women of her own race” (p. 108) and images of “the soldiers of her own country towering above the men of another land so much like those of the earth she had left” (p. 109).7
But mass media can also be a tool for exposing the oppressive nature of this political relationship. In the same section of the story, American soldiers are shown on screen “firing their weapons at small running figures who fell on the blooded street like stilled large dolls” and, “in another city [that lays] prostrate beneath the shadows of [Anne’s] land.” While involved in that carnage, these G.I. Joes mask “their bewilderment behind a swaggering cruelty” (ibid.).
This “long train of abuses” by the U.S. is revealed in the heated exchange between Anne and the young activist Fortunato Riesgo. In this verbal skirmish, the latter indicts the U.S. government’s meddling with the affairs of his country and killing “hundreds of thousands here and millions more all over the world” (p. 101). In the 1960s, the memories of the Philippine-American War may not have completely been overshadowed by World War II.
According to Augusto De Viana,8 the said conflict claimed the lives of 4,000 American troopers and 16,000 Filipino soldiers as well as over a million civilians and that during the “early part of American rule parts of the country were turned to a ‘howling wilderness’ and Filipinos endured reconcentration, exile, indiscriminate killings, water cures and other tortures never practiced before.”9 This came especially after the Balangiga incident where a group of US infantry were massacred by Filipino revolutionaries in Samar.10 The “no-holds-barred” operations of US-led war against the anti-imperialist Hukbalahap soldiers in the ‘50s and ‘60s also saw the oppression and even death of thousands of Filipinos.11
Add to this the fact that at that time the US was engaged in several conflicts in other parts of the world like Nicaragua and Cuba in accordance with its “Policy of Containment.” Most notable among these little wars was that in Vietnam in which the US involvement began as a “counter-intervention act” and ended up as, in the words of American political analyst Michael Walzer, “an American war, fought for American purposes, in someone else’s country.”12
Riesgo also laments the destruction of “native undertakings” due to the machinations of Anne’s government. This could be read as a reference to the treaties and policies made during this period which ensured the protection of American interests in the Philippines. Filipino National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera perhaps summarized best the arm-twisting strategies of the U.S. in Philippine politics during this period:
The Bell Trade Act imposed free trade, which meant free flow of U.S. goods into the Philippines for 28 years, and insisted on “parity” rights allowing U.S. citizens to enjoy the same rights as Filipinos in the exploitation of the natural resources of the country. The Philippine Rehabilitation Act tied war damage payments to Philippine approval of the Bell Trade Act. Free use of 23 base sites in the Philippines for 99 years was demanded by the Military Bases Agreement. Capping everything was the Military Assistance Pact which gave the U.S., through military aid, control over the military forces of the Philippines.13
Thus, “1946 to 1960 was an era of effective American control of the Philippine economy, political life, and military affairs.”14 Angelo and Aloma De Los Reyes15 extend the period of American control over the Philippine government to the time of Ferdinand Marcos who made his Presidential debut in 1965. At the time, the political and social condition of the country was delirious, a description of which was made in a CIA report prior to that year’s political exercise:
There is a generalized condition of discontent and lawlessness…fed by several basic and interrelated factors: widespread rural poverty; deep social and economic cleavage between upper and lower classes; extensive unemployment and underemployment; widespread graft, corruption, and favouritism in government and in business. In the cities, especially among the youth, there is frustration over the lack of political and economic opportunity… 16
The rise of Ferdinand Marcos to the helm of government did not spell the rise of the country from squalor for, among other acts that made him notorious, he continued his money-making schemes which he established during his Senatorial days. He eventually amassed more than USD 950,000 that was eventually deposited in three separate accounts in Zurich’s Swiss Credit Bank.17
It is no surprise then that the period following Marcos’ first term also marked the rise of nationalistic movements seen not only in the streets but also in literature among which is the short story under study.
Toward the end of Teodoro’s work, an optimistic teleology is articulated: Even if Olvido continues to be deaf to his people’s cries of reform, change will come to free them from the prison built by a dominating culture with the aid of the dominated. That day will come when the wrath of the oppressed “would come crashing down in a shower of sparks to break the fire-forged chains, to let loose the great purifying storm of fire that would howl through the fetid streets of the evil cities of the world” (pp. 109-110).
Such a hopeful stance squares with what Karl Marx wrote in “World Revolution”:
The communists… openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.18
Of course, Marxism is itself an ideology and whether Marx’s vision is as illusory as Olvido’s Humanism is open to debate – as open as the way the story ends in which there is no promise of certainty that separation will eventually end up in lasting reconciliation, or that revolution will spell meaningful reform.
Notes:
* Many thanks to Professor Delfin Tolentino, Jr. of UP Baguio for his much-needed comments used in polishing this essay.
1 Hans Bertens, Literary Theory: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2001), 85.
2 Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. (London: SAGE Publications, 2003), 80-81.
3 Henceforth, page references as this pertain to Teodoro’s book, The Undiscovered Country (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2004.
4 Quoted by Michael J. Baxter in his article, “God is Not American,” in D. Brent Laytham, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 56.
5 Servando D. Halili, Jr., Iconography of the New Empire: Race and Gender Images and the American Colonization of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006), 18. The concept of “Manifest Destiny” was first articulated by journalist John L. O’Sullivan who wrote in 1845:
It is our manifest destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.
Notes historian Alan Axelrod: The phrase “manifest destiny” instantly becomes a justification for the United States’ possession of territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, even if acquiring the land means war. 1001 Events That Made America: A Patriot’s Handbook (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006), 79-80.
6 Robert S. Ellwood, 1950: Crossroads of American Religious Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 189.
7 In one of his comments on this essay, Professor Tolentino writes:
The film that Anne watches in the plane appears to be one of those typical Hollywood war pictures where the American military is represented as agent of salvation while their enemies are completely demonized.
8 De Viana, Augusto. Apples & Ampalaya: Bittersweet Glimpses of the American Period in the Philippines (1898-1946). (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2001), 53.
9 De Viana, 157.
10 see Cherilyn A. Walley, “A Century of Turmoil: America’s Relationship with the Philippines,” Special Warfare, 17 (September 2004): 6.
11 Renato Constantino & Letizia R. Constantino. The Philippines: The Continuing Past (Quezon City: The Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978), 215, ff.
12 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977), 196; cf. John T. Rourke & Mark A. Boyer, International Politics on the World State, Brief, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 31.
13 Bienvenido Lumbera & Cynthia Nograles Lumbera, Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology, Revised ed. (Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1997), 180.
14 ibid.
15 Angelo J. De los Reyes & Aloma M. De los Reyes, eds., Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky, Vol. II (Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Group, 1986), 101.
16 Cited in Charles C. McDougald, The Marcos File: Was He a Philippine Hero or a Corrupt Tyrant? (San Francisco: San Francisco Publishing, 1987), 118.
17 David Fagan [Constantino, Renato], “The Left and the Future of the Marcos Regime in the Philippines,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 30 (August 2000): 446-449; cf. McDougald, 119.
18 Michael Curtis, The Great Political Theories, Vol 2, New Expanded Ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1981), 172.
Works Cited:
Axelrod, Alan. 1001 Events that Made America. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2006.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Constantino, Renato & Letizia R. Constantino. The Philippines: The Continuing Past. Quezon City: The Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978.
Curtis, Michael. The Great Political Theories. Vol 2, New Expanded Edition. New York: Avon Books, 1981.
De los Reyes, Angelo J. & Aloma M. De los Reyes, eds. Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky. Vol. II. Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Group, 1986.
De Viana, Augusto. Apples & Ampalaya: Bittersweet Glimpses of the American Period in the Philippines (1898-1946). Manila: UST Publishing House, 2001.
Ellwood, Robert S. 1950: Crossroads of American Religious Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000.
Fagan, David [Constantino, Renato]. “The Left and the Future of the Marcos Regime in the Philippines.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 30 (August 2000): 446-449.
Halili, Servando D. Jr. Iconography of the New Empire: Race and Gender Images and the American Colonization of the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006.
Laytham, D. Brent, ed. God is not…Religious, Nice, “One of Us,” An American, A Capitalist. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004.
Lumbera, Bienvenido & Cynthia Nograles Lumbera. Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology. Revised ed. Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1997.
McDougald, Charles C. The Marcos File: Was He a Philippine Hero or a Corrupt Tyrant? San Francisco: San Francisco Publishing, 1987.
Rourke, John T. & Mark A. Boyer. International Politics on the World State, 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Teodoro, Luis. The Undiscovered Country. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2004.
Walley, Cherilyn A. “A Century of Turmoil: America’s Relationship with the Philippines.” Special Warfare, 17 (September 2004): 4-8.
Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977.
… the church is not an independent, closed organism that has all the resources it needs for its own indefinite survival. We are hosted by a culture, and in order to survive in that culture… we must open ourselves to it and adapt to it. We can have absolutely no chance of shaping it unless we can sense and respond to it, and this means adapting our interfaces, our “ports” if you will, to allow free transfer each way. Of course, there are those who still see the church as a holy lifeboat, attempting to save as many as possible from the sinking vessel that is modern culture, and that any attempt to adapt it to will result in us getting pulled down too, but it seems impossible to defend this position when we read of a God who got stuck in and involved in a culture at every conceivable level. 101-102
♥ Brewin, Kester. 2007. Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church that is Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-up/Communal/Flexible {Always Evolving}. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
Found these in a local school supplies store. Corny to some for sure, but maybe better to others – better than just showbiz faces on our kids’ notebook covers. 
The Sleeping Beauty of Tinglayan, whose legend sprang from a tale of tribal conflict, is in peaceful repose, oblivious to the tribal conflicts that once slaughtered many of her children. (AUS PHOTO)
Fellow Kalingas and non-Kalingas who take great interest in Kalinga culture may wish to read the following recently updated AUS materials:
1. AUS Memoirs: “Venture to Harmony: Restoring the Butbut-Sumadel Bodong. Gus Saboy used to tell me that the Butbut-Sumadel tribal bodong (peace pact) he brokered with a dear family friend, Lutheran Pastor Luis Ao-as was his greatest challenge as a peacemaker. That brief historic moment was to him more than finishing a four-year course. As far as I know, this peace pact has never been broken since its restoration by these two Kalinga pangats (tribal chiefs/leaders). This article is incomplete, however, because I haven’t found yet the other pages of this segment of Gus’ memoirs. . Click here to read the article.
2. “Tribal Peacemaking: Proposed Strategies and Skills” by Pastor Luis L. Ao-as. Pastor Ao-as, a Lutheran and a member of the Kalinga tribe of Basao, is one of the most admirable Christian Kalingas I have been privileged to know. His being a Christian has not barred him from contributing greatly in the refinement of the Kalinga indigenous knowledge system. In this article, he shares (originally with the Peace and Order Council of then Kalinga-Apayao) the insights he and Gus Saboy learned from the Sumadel-Butbut peace mission.
To intervene in a tribal conflict implies the ability of individuals and organizations to (1) understand its sources (traditional customs) and direction, (2) know how to select goal(s) for intervention, and (3) systematically develop strategies and skills for pursuing those goals.
The traditional custom of revenge is the central reality around which social conflict occurs among the Kalingas. To revenge is to gain some kind of social status in the Kalinga system which at this time is upheld by many people in Kalinga. Not to revenge is degraded by some, if not by the majority, of the Kalinga society. – LLA
Click here to read full article.
3. “Report on the Restoration of the Sumadel-Botbot Bodong (Peace Pact).” Gus Saboy’s report to then Kalinga-Apayao Governor Amado B. Almazan. Read this article. A “Press Release Version” here.
4. “Letter to Ireneo Uyam.” After the exchange of the Sipat, there appeared to be renewed tensions between the two tribes which occasioned the writing of this letter to a certain “Ireneo” which I assumed to be another Kalinga leader, Ireneo Uyam. He expresses here his fear that should the recently restored bodong be severed once again, militarization of Tinglayan will ensue. Thankfully, the said tensions eased and peace was preserved.
We cannot live by hatred or recriminations. For to live with such human failings would ruin lives instead. There is everything to gain by forgetting and forgiving. On the one hand, there is plenty to lose by harboring consuming hatred and sharpening one’s penchant for vengeance against his fellowmen, particularly to those who have brought disaster and enduring pain on the lives of others. We are not living for the past. We are living for tomorrow; we cannot be prisoners of an unwanted past….
You could just picture vividly the repercussions if anything like that which is planned would happen at this time. In this tribal conflict, I must tell you that we would not know where the Government will stand. The Government will have to fix its posture and brace up for a punishment of both tribal groups. And you know who will suffer most if military operations will again be waged in the municipality of Tinglayan. The killings and brutal military abuses which our people suffered in Tinglayan, particularly in the Bangad, Tinglayan, Basao, Bugnay, and Botbot areas are yet too fresh to forget. And we do not like this to happen to Sumadel. – AUS
5. To view scanned text of agreement of and signatories to the 1981 restoration of the Sumadel-Botbot Bodong, go to this page.
6. AUS Memoirs: “The Bodong has no Ideology.” The “Kalinga Bodong Congress” was the brainchild of Gus Saboy. In this portion of his memoirs marked “12 o’clock mn, September 15, 1998″ on the original manuscript, he gives a backgrounder on the Kalinga Bodong and the codification of its pagta (by-laws). By ideology he specifically meant “Communism” and “Democracy.”
The curse of the Bodong institution is vengeance-killing and were it not for this tolerance or freedom which has become a part of the system, Bodong would have been one of the most wonderful arts of governance mankind had ever discovered. For vengeance killing in the Bodong has also institutionalized the art of killing for the sake of honor, pride and for the thrill of it. In those early days, head-hunting was a fad. The Bodong either would spark head-hunting expeditions or would force down a ceasefire in the tribal conflict towards bringing about a restoration of the severed peace pact. But the essence of this is that there is no Bodong if there is no blood spilled as a result of murder or actual physical injuries. The Bodong practice has showed man to play God and to take upon himself the power and privilege that belongs only to the Maker. Thus God said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
…To me, Bodong has no ideology. It exists as a way of life developed through years of continued governance under its indigenous customs and traditions. Communism as an ideology has its own dogma and philosophy and so too with democracy. And here is the purity of the Bodong being challenged and threatened with adulteration and prostitution by cultural soldiers of fortune and ideological poachers… – AUS
Click here to read full article.
7. AUS Profile. Updated info/complete profile of Gus. Click here to view it.
The Peacemaker. Gus Saboy in a reflective mode during the Sumadel-Botbot Bodong negotiations.
This mutant photo was emailed by Anthony Herron. Hmm… At least the H1N1 virus doesn’t make one look as hideous and as un-huggable as Gollum. This one even looks like it’s got Master Yoda’s gazillion mediclorians. Now, who says mutations are 99% deleterious? hehe
I got these “six classic Jewish insults and curses” from Alan King’s delightful work, Great Jewish Joke Book [(New York: Crown Publishers, 2002), 8-9]:
♦ May you inherit a hotel and die in every room.
♦ May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground.
♦ May your bones be broken as often as the Ten Commandments.
♦ May you have a son named after you soon.
♦ May the souls of all of King Solomon’s mothers-in-law inhabit you.
♦ May God mistake you for your worst enemy and give you all the curses you wished on him.
Human Rights lawyer Jose Molintas was interviewed yesterday by local TV host Pia Gutierrez on the Baguio City government’s declaration of Candy Pangilinan as persona non grata. Part of the discussion fell on the name Igorot. Molintas explained that some natives, like the Ifugaos and the Kalingas, actually do not want themselves to be called Igorots and prefer Cordillerans instead.
The name issue is not new of course, for it has sporadically sparked spirited discussions for decades now, as documented by Gerard Finin in his 2005 book, The Making of the Igorot. And it will continue to be debated on until we mountain people do not realize that arguing over whether to call ourselves Cordillerans or I
gorots doesn’t really magically transform us into a greater community, anymore than changing our names by a court decree transforms our personality. The ethnic names we wear are products of historical accidents (or political machinations, if you please) and we will remain stuck or stamped with these while we live. On the other hand, what we make of our identity is our own choosing. We can choose to be called Cordillerans to avoid the negative connotations of the name Igorot, but if by our speech and behavior we are no different from the people we despise or the animals we fear, that newfangled name will bear as much stigma.
I am a Kalinga and I am not ashamed to be called one. I also call myself an Igorot and I am not ashamed to be called one. I do not need to change my ethnic name to create for myself a good reputation or to help construct a pleasing communal identity. I need only recognize what makes my ethnic name sound dreadful so I could shun it; I need only strive to live up to the values we mountain people uphold and so make a difference in my own little corner. Jose G. Dulnuan said it so eloquently:
I am an Igorot. Let me be treated as I deserve — with respect if I am good, with contempt if I am no good, irrespective of the name I carry. Let the term, Igorot, remain, and the world will use it with the correct meaning attached to it. [quoted by Wm. Henry Scott in his essay, "The Origin of the Word Igorot," in Of Igorots and Independence (Baguio City: A-Seven Publishing, 1993), 67.]
That correct meaning will only be used by the world largely if some of us cease to be the stereotypes many outsiders have cast us in: booze-bamboozled hunks zigzagging out of some folkhouse along Magsaysay or Lakandula in the wee hours of the morning; leather-clad jeepney drivers making urinals out of roadside gardens; toothless, feathered and tailed, camera-loving grannies making brisk business at Mines View or the Botanical Garden who can’t explain what their native ornaments represent; the Kalinga kawitan (lit., “rooster”) who has a penchant for belligerence, threatening lowlander-neighbors with decapitation over a petty misunderstanding; and the lordly yFontok who thinks some folks are meant to be his/her footstool.
That correct meaning will only be used by the world if we live by the best qualities of the native exemplified by a host of Igorots in the arena of business (Jack Dulnuan), politics (Joe Molintas), literature (Luisa Igloria), the academe (Albert Bacdayan), showbizness (Marky Cielo), or other professional fields, as well as by a still larger number of mountaineers in the fields of our ili who live humble but decent lives.
So whether we call ourselves Cordillerans or Igorots doesn’t really make much difference; dealing with the harder issues does: how our behavior and speech have helped construct Igorotness, how we should react to ill-informed statements about us, what image of the Igorot our leaders have projected, what should politicians do beyond declaring someone a persona non-grata to help ensure that outsiders become more sensitive to cultural diversity, how our schools could educate Igorots and non-Igorots alike about the checkered history of Igorots and other indigenous peoples in the country, how far have our churches gone in helping build up indigenous systems and practices, and how local and foreign media can help promote a better understanding of traditional culture.
***
Those who wish to better understand Igorots should start with this docu by the Baguio-based artistic group, OPEN SPACE:
Candy Pangilinan’s public verbal and written apology has not doused the flames of another e-bonfire of inanities similar to the one that raged when the “Francesca in France” issue was still red-hot.
One only has to visit Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP) to get a feel of this blaze. Most of the comments to the PEP article on Candy’s faux pas surely titillate the gossip-mongers, but only foment more misunderstandings among us.
Take, for example, this vacuous comment by one who aptly called him/herself “Showbizbuddy”:
Huwag na sana maging OA ang remark ng iba against Candy kasi obvious naman na hindi intentional ang ginawa niya. Saka hindi naman racist si Candy kapag nga nasa abroad yan Pinoy agad ang hinahanap niyan para makausap. E kung foreigner na racist ang makakausap niyo baka mas malala pa ang sabihin sa ethnic minority sa Pinas e. Take the remark constructively Igorots! We love you naman — huwag kayong mga balat-sibuyas sa mga tukso ng mga komedyante at mga kababayang miron na walang magawa: We are proud of you and Candy as well I am sure. (15May2009 00:54am)
Naturally, Showbizbuddy’s attempt to chip in his/her one-centavo to buying Igorots out of this flame backfired (mixed idioms and metaphors intended ). Consider:
♣ Branding the Igorots’ reaction to Candy’s slur as “OA” could only further antagonize some Igorots
♣ Reference to foreigners as being more racist towards Filipino ethnic groups is fallacious (red herring) and missed the bone of contention (i.e. ethnocentrism/discrimination among Filipinos themselves)
♣ Her/His positive-thinking advice: “Take the remark constructively Igorots!” positively identifies a Filipino who lacks sensitivity to the cultural and historical undertones of this issue
♣ To top it all, expressing one’s love for Igorots and pride in what they represent while telling them not to be balat-sibuyas (lit. “onion-skinned,” which, in the Philippines, means you’re a bundle of nerves, not 90% fat-free) smacks of hypocrisy.
That is why another commenter, “Pinkcheeks,” retorted as follows to show she wasn’t tickled pink by Showbizbuddy’s facile remarks:
Showbizbuddy,
Don’t be ridiculous.. you are another Candy.Don’t say you love us, its very obvious that you are just saying it just to shut us up. You are very wrong foreigners are very sensitive about racist remarks…in most countries they have antidiscrimination law. If that joke was said overseas that could have banned Candy in the entertainment industry..thats how serious it is. It just sounds simple because we are in pinas..and apology is enough to repair it.We are not being OA please dont call us that.Dont make more damage.she has already apologized. (15May2009 06:46am)
It is not only the inconsiderate comments of non-Igorots that have stirred the coals, however. Some of my fellow Igorots are to blame as well for their unfiltered retorts, like these strings of threats and put-downs from “Fireman” (boy, was he on fire!) and “Lydnare,” respectively:
aba,ang kakapal din ng pagmumukha ng babaeng ito!
akala mo kagandahan! wag na wag kang magpapakita o tumuntong man lang sa Baguio!
baka gawin kang joke ng mga Igorot! sobra kasing OA at pilit magpatawa kaya tuloy ganyan ang kalalabasan mo.
dapat ibigti kang patiwarik Candy! kung umasta ka para kang sinu! (15May2009 11:14am)
Being an artist is being able to intertwine with appreciation, respect and aesthetics. Primarily candy has none of the traits! No appreciation for his hosts, no respect for others, and truly lacking of the aesthetics of humanity. She is just an artist, she is just a lame show of a circus. (15may200915.38pm)
It is bad enough that the un/ill-informed would speak about or for Igorots whom they only know for their feathered headgears and woven tails. The more tragic thing is when we Igorots ourselves unwittingly build on stereotypes about us by our untempered responses to derogatory remarks against us.
Related Post: “Candy Pangilinan’s Ethnic Slur“
Related Posts: Igorot! (2), Igorot! (1), Igorots & McDonalds
… during those three centuries when Spanish firearms never really conquered the lofty liberty of the Igorots, they were paying a heavy price for their independence. Moving off into more remote parts of the Cordillera, they had to pit their brawn and brains against raw nature and sterile soil. And while they learned to carve whole mountainsides into terraces to wring out a bare subsistence of living, their tribute-paying brethren in the lowlands were learning to farm like Spaniards and to cook like Chinese. While Graciano Lopez Jaena was ornamenting the Spanish press with his graceful prose, and Jose Rizal was hobnobbing with European scholars in a half a dozen foreign languages, their illiterate Igorot compatriots were being exhibited in the Philippine exposition along with other native plants and animals. In their mountain province independence, the Igorots missed out on all those convenient innovations enjoyed by their conquered brethren — the iron plows, the horses and cows, the pancit and pan-de-sal, the camisas de chino and barongs tagalog, the grade school primers and those prestigious blue eyes and curly, blond hair. It was a heavy price to pay for liberty. And it is a price not yet fully paid. For even their descendants who are congressmen, professors or bishops must send their children to government schools where they dutifully stare at textbooks which say they are different from all other Filipinos because of migration. But never a word about their 350-year resistance to foreign aggression.
- William Henry Scott, “The Defense of Igorot Independence,” Of Igorots and Independence (Baguio City: A-Seven Publishing, 1993), 38-39.
I only learned of comedienne (sorry, comedy person) Candy Pangilinan’s “TAO PO AKO, HINDI PO AKO IGOROT” [I am a human being, not an Igorot] slur after watching ABS-CBN’s morning showbizcast today. The actress was shown tearfully and profusely apologizing to the Igorot community for the insensitive statement she twice uttered in public.
It was stupid of Candy to say such a thing, but it was also wise of her to issue an immediate and sincere apology — says something about the good in her as a performer, a Pinay, and a UPian. That we all commit mistakes (I myself have said a million-and-one words that hurt a lot of people and I have had to apologize as much) doesn’t mean we are less noble; we only become so when we stubbornly refuse to own up to our faults and ungraciously behave when we take the flak. We need to learn from all these and move on with a renewed commitment to fairness and goodwill and so be closer to the ideal person within.
It would be interesting to compare the reactions of bloggers and other cybernauts to the ethnic slurs of Candy and those of “Francesca in France” who has yet to apologize to Igorots for her haughtiness.
Other related posts:
♦ The Gallant Igorots of Bataan
♦ 1st International Conference on Cordillera Studies
[See some reactions of Igorots @ Baguio City Online, and read the text of Candy's apology @ candiva.multiply.com.]
Au/Joel, Nonawin, et al., I have you in mind… Carpe diem!
To you, the batch of 2009, I say now: UP is flawed as all human institutions are; but it remains the best that your country can offer. And a UP education was offered to you as a gift from the Filipino people, in recognition of your own gifts and your willingness to submit to a discipline — both intellectual and physical — more demanding that what you might have found elsewhere.
Use it now to good purpose. Use it honestly, and humbly, and bravely. Use it to help others rise above the poverty of their circumstances and the narrowness of their imaginations. Use it in the service of a country that will require every man and woman to do more than their best if it is to survive in these troubled times.
- from the graduation message of Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman, President, University of the Philippines (Apr 2009)
♥♥♥
♣ When God Becomes a Drug by Leo Booth
♣ The Case Against Lawyers by Catherine Crier
♣ Divided by a Common Language by Christopher Davies
♣ Mama, Get the Hammer! There’s a Fly on Papa’s Head! by Barbara Johnson
♣ iPod, Therefore I Am: Inside the Apple Box by Dylan Jones
♣ The Taming of the Drew by Katie Maxwell
♣ Driving Under the Affluence by Julia Phillips
♣ We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier by Celia Rivenbank
♣ Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever by Judge Judy Sheindlin
♣ Olive or Twist? by Jack Ziegler
Anito @ SM Baguio - smsphoto
In a report on the Panagbenga early this year, Bulatlat.com writer Cye Reyes quotes Innabuyog head Vernie Yocogan-Diano as saying, “The traditional dances are capitalized on and used for attraction, even stylizing it to fit the current fashion.”
As most of you readers know, the Baguio Flower Festival is not the only show window of a commodified Igorot culture, nor are traditional dances the only aspects of this culture that are exploited for profit. Many cultural artifacts have long been mass produced to cater to the demands of enterprising merchants and curio-loving tourists.
In the photo above, the two anito carvings displayed at the entrance of a restaurant on the third floor of SM Baguio make for an intriguing semiotical reading. Let us appropriate what cultural critics Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon have written about the semiotics of American buying pattern:
“…a cultural sign gets its meaning from the system in which it appears. Its significance does not lie in its usefulness but rather in its symbolism, in the image it projects, and that image is socially constructed.” ["The Culture of American Consumption," Sonia Maasic & Jack Solomon, eds., Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000), 45-46]
The anito displays may be read as cultural items that dramatize how native culture has adapted to (or survived despite the onslaught of) modernity. Or as sculptures that proclaim Gerry’s Grill’s pride in or identification with indigenous culture.
On the other hand, seeing these cultural artifacts within the system (i.e., SM Baguio/Malls, in general) it is in, this picture may also be read as actually portraying exploitation, not adaptation: the anito couple are displayed as a come-on to would-be diners, proclaiming the uprooting of native symbols from their original cultural contexts. Just like the antique-looking chairs and counter flanking them, the eatery anitos may be seen as entrepreneurial tools artificially reflecting what is old and native (or reflecting a superficial or hollow understanding of the indigenous.) Seen this way, the anitos are thus symbols of an innovative — though not necessarily culturally sensitive — marketing strategy.
Perhaps the symbolism would be interpreted differently if the owners of Gerry’s Grill placed tags and explanatory notes on the anito carvings, explaining what these actually mean to and how these reflect the worldview of the Igorots. In this way, dining experience at Gerry’s Grill for both locals and foreigners could become not only a taste of fine cooking but also an educational experience on Cordillera culture.
Hell hath no fury like the Media scorned. No, that should be: It is fearful to fall into the hands of an angry ABS-CBN.
That is what the police who oh-so-triumphantly arrested five members of Ted Failon’s household must have realized by now. They are now being publicly scrutinized with video footages belying some of their defensive statements. The same media that helped sensationalize this tragic death now unleashes its power to clear Failon’s name primarily with testimonies of family and friends, and to seek justice for the humiliation the police has slapped on the grieving family.
ABS-CBN is fuming mad, but now more mindful, I guess, of how its manner of reportage could either damn or justify the innocent.
The ghastly death of Trinidad Etong, wife of multi-awarded ABS-CBN broadcaster Ted Failon, has unsurprisingly generated a lot of speculations from gossip-mongers in the media down to the sassy vendors at the flea-market . Although Failon had earlier pled for the hospital staff and the media to respect his family’s privacy, details surrounding the tragic incident still leaked out to the public a few hours after he had rushed his wife to the hospital.
What must be doubly painful for Failon is that the media industry which sometimes feasts on the misfortunes of people and which he has represented all these years has now trained its floodlights on him, sensationalizing his most painful experience yet mainly by putting it as its top story on a “Showbiz News” program. But I guess he somehow understands that his fellow Kapamilya and even his neighbors, the Kapuso, are just doing their job and are simply dishing out what most of the viewing public are itching to hear or salivating to see.
May he and his family continue to find comfort and grace in this their time of grief, healing in the years to come.
A man’s bread and butter is only insured when he works for it.
- Marcus Garvey, 83
Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day, give him a hoe!
- Swahili Folk Saying, 84
Actually we are slaves to the cost of living.
- Carolina Maria De Jesus, 84
Man cannot live by profit alone.
- James Baldwin, 84
The appearance of millionaires in any society is no proof of its affluence; they can be produced by very poor countries… it is not efficiency of production which makes millionaires; it is the uneven distribution of what is produced.
- Julius K. Nyerere, 85
We realize that our future lies chiefly in our own hands. We know that neither institution nor friends can make a race stand unless it has strength in its own foundation; that races, like individuals, must stand or fall by their own merit; that to fully succeed they must practice the virtues of self-reliance, self-respect, industry, perseverance, and economy.
- Paul Robeson, 91
If you cain’t bear no crosses, You cain’t wear no crown.
- African-American Spiritual, 96
Source: Janes Cheatham Bell, ed. Famous Black Quotations. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1995.
More email scams in my inbox:
1
The Monday Lottery
London, United Kingdom.
The Monday Lottery, United Kingdom wishes to inform you that the results of the E-mail address ballot lottery international program by Great Britain held on the of 29th March, 2009 is out.Your email account have been picked as a winner of a lump sum pay out of ( £1,000,000.00 pounds sterling ) credited to file REF NO.REF:UKL/ 09-0802742009. This is from total prize money of GBP 5,000,000.00 shared among the FIVE ( 5 ) international winners in this category.You are to contact our claims agent for validation:
THE BENEFICIARY/OWNER OF THE WINNING EMAIL OF THE FUNDS SHOULD COMPLETE THIS CLAIMS FORM.
1. FULL NAMES OF BENEFICIARY:
2. RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
3. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
4. PHONE/FAX NUMBERS:
5. NAME AND ADDRESS OF NEXT OF KIN:
6. SEX:
7. OCCUPATION:
8. MARITAL STATUS:
9. NATIONALITY:
10. REF NUMBER:
11. AMOUNT WON:
Mr. Michael Smith.
Email : cgnl_claimdepartment2009@
For More Information
Tel.:+44-704-573-6915.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Jenifer Fox
Online Coordinator
2
Hang Seng Bank Ltd
Sai Wan Ho Branch
171 Shaukiwan Road
Hong Kong.
Good Day,
I sincerely hope that this letter will not come to you as a surprise or an embarrassment since we neither knew each other before nor had any neither previous correspondence/ contact. Let me start by introducing myself. I am
Mr. Ming Yang, Director of Operations of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, Sai Wan Ho Branch, Hong Kong. I have an obscured business suggestion for you.
I am here-by seeking your service in giving a clear research and feasibility studies on areas I could invest on. Your services will be paid for, and you will be a partner, if your recommendation is accepted.
As a bank employee, I can not operate any personal investment till I am retired and with the Anti-corruption Bill passed in Hong Kong; it is risky for a fixed income earner to own any huge amount of money in Hong Kong or any foreign country. It is then advisable to invest in any foreign land secretly and patiently wait for retirement.
You are to handle everything personally and with utmost confidentiality, if my proposal is acceptable as I may not be able to travel down, since I must obtain an official clearance before leaving this territory.
Note importantly that, this is a confidential proposal and must be treated as such because the banking sector has commenced probing of all senior banking officials that have served in the past and presently in service.
For security purpose, due to telecom interception in Hong Kong, I shall not accept or acknowledge any phone call. Only fax messages/emails would be treated in relation to this proposal but not without this code; [CODE NO: ZX1-121]. Should you be further interested, I would prefer you to reach me on this email address: (minyyang01@ymail.com) and finally after that I shall provide you with more details of this operation.
Kind Regards
Mr. Ming Yang
3
3 Upper Dean Street,
Birmingham, England, B5 4SG.
United Kingdom
Dear Internet User,
This Email is to inform you that you emerged a winner of the sum of ?1,000.000 Euros with the following numbers attached Ref Number: PW 9590ES 9414,Batch Number: 573881545-NL/2009 on our online draws which was played on the year 2009.For further Information about your Winnings,contact your Lottery.
Claims Officer with the following contact Address Below.
Tel: +44 703 596-1615
Email: mr.silvamorelli@8u8.hk
You will provide him with the following information:
(CLAIMS INFORMATIONS):
1. Full Names:
2. Your Age:
3. Gender /Sex:
4. Home Address:
5. Occupation:
6. Country:
7. Home/Work Phone:
8.Cellphone:
Once Again Congratulations!!! Thank you for being a user of the World Wide Web.
Sincerely,
Stella Bruce (Mrs).
4
regard
Mr. Bill Morrison
Co-ordinator
bill.morrison009@btinternet.com
5
Batch Number: 35/R565-33
Dear account owner,
The IRISH ONLINE PROMOTION BOARD hereby brings to our notice today that You have won €801,619 (Eight Hundred and One Thousand, Six hundred and Thirteen Euro) from the free online programm held on the today.
To process the claim of your prize, The Irish Lottery Board requires you to provide your personal information so that the Irish Lottery Claims Agent will help you process the claim. Fill the form below:
Your Names…..
Address……
Age…..
Occupation…….
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With the above information, the claims agent, Mr Fred Monte, will help you process the claim of your prize. You can reach him on phone +44-704-574-9850 and quote your Ticket Number and Batch numbers to him at once to enable him obtain all the official documents regarding this claim on your behalf.
Ticket number:RF9R/5043/3223/66
Batch Number: 35/R565-33
Announcer,
Mrs. Helen Berlin,
Promotion Assistant Director.
IRISH LOTTERY, 2009 ONLINE PROMOTION
Hello,
How are you doing?hope all is well with you, i am sorry that i didn’t inform you about my traveling to England for a Seminar.
I need a favor from you as soon as you recieve this e-mail because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money,and other valuable things were kept, i will like you to assist me with a loan urgently. I will be needing the sum of $2,500 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home.
I will appreciate whatever you can afford to help me with, i’ll pay you back as soon as i return. Kindly let me know if you can be of help? so that i can send you the details to use when sending the money through western union.
Your reply will be greatly appreciated.
Grace
This is odd, I muttered to myself while reading this message sent from the email address of one of my colleagues and my teacher in grad school, Prof. Grace Subido. It’s titled “HELP PLEASE!!!” (No, it wasn’t all caps, but yes, it had three exclamation points). I checked the sender’s email address. No problem there, all the letters and characters are complete and in their proper order.
But how could she be in England at this hour (message sent @ 6.49 pm, 15 April 2000) when I just attended her Literature class today after lunchtime and even consulted her on a form I was filling in later in the afternoon ? I know she’s got a sleek car and a loaded wallet, but I didn’t know she had a supersonic jet, I brayed and clucked to myself. Besides, if she were attending a seminar in London or in Oslo, Chechnya, Tel Aviv, Kabul, Shanghai, Queensland, Rhode Island, Timbuktu, or elsewhere, we at our department — being such a closely knit bunch — would know. Besides, the professor is not one who’d freak out so much after losing her pocketbook that she would let out a battery of S.O.S. to a thousand-and-one smarties in her mailing list. Why, the first thing she’d do perhaps is to call home for a money transfer. And of all people, I won’t be one to whom she’d email a “send-me-money-puhleeeezzz!” scream when she knows I couldn’t even foot the bill at any eat-out meeting with her and a few other friends.
Then I re-read the message and four more details confirmed my suspicion that she didn’t write this “Mayday! Mayday” text and that her email account has just been hacked.
“Hello,
How are you doing?”
Nyehehe… What was that? Grace’s opening line? Helow…?! It would have been close if the hacker wrote,
“Dear Scott,
I know you’re rich and kind…”
Kidding! (But I wish! bray and chuckle again…)
Now to details # 2-4.
“…as soon as you recieve this email…”
Being the OC and grammarian that she is, my friend Grace wouldn’t misspell “receive” even when typing with closed eyes.
“ i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money,and other valuable things were kept…. I will be needing the sum of $2,500 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home.”
Veteran editor Grace wouldn’t hyphenate the underlined verb phrase. Well, that claim of misplacing something is quite believable because, like me, Grace sometimes gets her cerebrum cells disoriented (translation: forgetful but not yet senile, makalimutin pero di pa naman ulyanin). But a $2,500 bill for a less than an hour stay in a hotel is preposterous! “Get myself back home”? Yeah, right. Go home to ‘Pinas bwuhuhu after a 30-minute seminar in Angle-land.
Friends, please be wary of emails like this. Who knows how many emails this pseudo has hacked already.
[Note: This is an abridged version of a paper I presented during the Baguio Centennial Conference held at UP Baguio. The full version is being reworked. Published in the April issue of the UP Baguio newsletter, Ti Similla - sms ]
Postcolonialism is a diverse network of ideas and practices that seeks to make sense of, evaluate, critique, and rewrite a people’s colonial experience. One of the best known postcolonial theorists is Edward Said who helped unveil the centuries-long essentializing project of the West in its dealings with the East, particularly the Muslim world in the Middle East. He cal
ls this identity project “Orientalism,” one which divided the world into the superior West (i.e., cultured, wealthy, masculine) and the inferior East (i.e., philistine, indigent, feminine). Among the various theoretical constructs Said appropriated in his work are those of Jacques Derrida (Deconstruction), Michel Foucault (Discourse), and Antonio Gramsci (Hegemony).
Said’s postcolonial thought is a useful tool in critiquing historical texts on the Philippines, as can be demonstrated in this textual analysis of On Baguio’s Past: Chapters from Local History and Tradition, an ethnohistorical work of the German scholar Otto Adolfo Scheerer (1858-1938).
A former cigar factory owner in Manila and later a coffee planter in Benguet, Scheerer emerged as an authority on Philippine culture after immersing most of his last 30 or more years studying and writing about the Philippines. During the Philippine Revolution, he was associated with several local heroes like Juan “Ora Cariño, Mateo “Bahag” Carantes, and even Pedro Paterno. Among the positions he held in Philippine government and academe included being the first provincial secretary of Benguet, lieutenant governor of Batanes, and language professor and first department head of Oriental Languages at the University of the Philippines.
On Baguio’s Past is divided into 12 parts, and records the missionary ventures and military expeditions of the Spaniards coming from the western side of Benguet, as well as the responses of the natives to these foreign incursions, with a special focus on events that transpired in the middle of the 18th century and toward the end of the 19th. He also includes the Cariño clan’s genealogical record dating back to the 15th century, covering 11 generations.
Baguio artist Jack Cariño opined that Scheerer stood up “for Indigenous People’s rights almost a century before it became a popular advocacy to do so.” This paper also argues that On Baguio’s Past may be read as a postcolonial text almost half a century before postcolonialism became a buzzword among academics.
The Scheerer text balances two essential vantagepoints — those of the Ibalois and the Spaniards — from which a part of the colonial history of Benguet could be analyzed. Scheerer carefully combs through the Spanish records and faithfully recounts in written form some of the oral history and tradition of the Ibaloi. In so doing, he precludes an essentialist interpretation of his work.
When referring to traditional culture, a typical orientalist text exoticizes it – that is, it portrays the native as a curio, a source of amazement and amusement. It usually makes a passing comment on native culture without really coming to a deeper appreciation of it. In contrast, when Scheerer writes about the Ibaloi culture, he sketches not a caricature but a holistic picture of the native seen within the context of traditional culture. In this way, he does not show partiality toward the colonialist; in fact he offers a sympathetic view of the colonized. Scheeer takes pains to understand indigenous tradition on its own terms, allowing the reader to understand a different but not necessarily inferior culture.
Scheerer showcases some of the Ibalois’ admirable qualities: independent yet amiable spirit, proactive leadership, deep religiosity, and admirable morals. However, he avoids one pitfall of some anti-orientalist texts called “nativism” (i.e., characterizing traditional culture as uncorrupted by western or modern influences). He does this by not neglecting to reveal what may be regarded as negative characteristics of the native, especially when judged using ecclesiastical or contemporary standards. Some of these are certain disruptive behaviors (e.g., robbery, drunkenness, brawling, and heckling), and “othering” practices (e.g. plutocratic social organization, slavery, and ethnocentrism).
But Scheerer does not only mention unsavory facts about Ibaloi lifeways. He goes further by providing context to or justifying some of these. For example, he defends an isolated case of human sacrifice (i.e., slave-killing and blood-drinking) in the sealing of a covenant as something that pales compared to the many instances of barbarism committed by supposedly “civilized” people in the Medieval West.
On the other hand, Scheerer reproduces Spanish accounts of religious and military forays into Benguet but does not seek to legitimize imperialist policies. Instead, he uses these texts to provide political context, even going to the extent of revealing ruptures among the colonizers themselves: politicians vs. politicians, politicians vs. priests, priests vs. priests.
But in baring some of the petty and serious rifts among the Spaniards, Scheerer does not paint all the Spaniards and their deeds in a bad light. For example, he speaks favorably of some Spanish missionaries and soldiers and recognizes the role of the Iberians in paving the way for the expansion of infrastructures by the American colonizers a few years later. He thus avoids another pitfall of some anti-orientalist texts, what Marxist sociologist Bryan S. Turner terms as “prejudicial occidentalism” — characterizing the West as essentially and totally evil.
Nevertheless, Scheerer reveals the Spanish version of “exceptionalism” veiled in what may be called the “discourse 
of sanctification.” Within and through this discourse, certain individuals, groups or institutions are privileged with a form of divinely wrought authority to confer holiness on people, places, events, or objects. Subsumed in this discourse are myriad practices ranging from spontaneous private meditative utterances to structured public worship acts, prayer postures to seating arrangements, donning clothes to designing curtains, wearing titles to writing decrees, beautifying relics to building edifices, entering a holy order to embarking on a pilgrimage, among others. There is politics in all these of course, for rules govern each practice, sanctions are laid down for violation of rules, and power is wielded by those who make rules of propriety and truth.
Spanish soldiers, politicians and priests operated within this discourse as religion was inextricably linked to the imperialist project of Spain in Asia, especially in the Philippines. Missionaries brought with them the prevailing cultural sensibilities in their countries of origin which collectively took a condescending outlook on the people of the East.
The Spaniards of this period thus regarded themselves as exalted above other peoples they collectively being the sole, legitimate purveyor of “pure” culture, and harbinger of truth and salvation. It is not surprising then to find similarity in the conferment of religious status and the bestowal of civil authority by the Spaniards on the native.
With this discourse, the Spaniards justified their fivefold oppression of the Ibaloi — exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. These abusive and punitive practices could be seen in the Spanish imposition of military rule, taxation, forced labor and conscription, trade restrictions, incarceration, “scorched-earth policy,” hamleting, and others.
And with this discourse, the Spaniards penetrated tribal culture in Benguet and succeeded in creating a hegemonic relationship with the Ibalois whose leaders were somehow complicit in this political set-up. Ironically, the strengths of the Ibaloi culture mentioned earlier became the weakness which the Spaniards took advantage of with their discourse of sanctification. The Ibaloi’s sense of awe, for instance, was a portal of the Spaniards to the natives’ heart; their deep respect for authority and sense of awe conspired, as it were, to plunge them into a relationship characterized by their consensual domination. Their much-praised hospitality was also an entry point for their domination for as the missionaries’ gospel entered their homes, there also followed the gospel of taxation, forced labor, militarization, and destruction of culture.
On Baguio’s Past as a postcolonial text offers a balanced perspective on the colonial experience of the Ibaloi Igorots during the Spanish regime in the Philippines. It attests to the author’s indispensable contribution to the preservation and enrichment of Ibaloi culture and to the drama that was and is Baguio. This 66-year old text may yet be serviceable to this generation and the next for the high value it places on returning to one’s roots, indigenous people’s rights, contextualized theology, and nationalist identity construction.
Works Cited:
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
Antolin, Francisco. Notices of the Pagan Igorots in the Interior of the Island of Manila. Trans. William Henry Scott. Manila: UST Publishing House, 1988.
Bagamaspad, Anaric & Zenaida Hamada-Pawid. A People’s History of Benguet. Baguio City: Benguet Provincial Government, 1985.
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE Publications Ltd., 2000.
Berreby, David. Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Cariño, Jack. “Otto Scheerer: True Friend to Baguio and the Ibalois.” The Baguio City Yearbook 2008.
De los Reyes, Angelo J. & Aloma M. De los Reyes, eds. Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky. Vol. II. Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Groups, 1986.
Finin, Gerardo A. The Making of the Igorot: Contours of Cordillera Consciousness. Quezon City: ADMU Press, 2005.
Gener, Timothy & Gorospe, Adonis A.O., eds. Principalites and Powers: Reflections in the Asian Context. Manila: AMF/ATS, 2007.
Hornedo, Florentino H. The Favor of the Gods: Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior. Manila: UST Publishing House, 2001.
Howard, David. The Last Filipino Headhunters. San Francisco: Last Gasp of San Francisco, 2000.
Lapiz, Ed. Paano Maging Pilipinong Kristiano [Becoming a Filipino Christian]. Makati City: Kaloob, 1996.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A Short History of the Far East. 4th ed. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1965.
Macfie, A.L. Orientalism: A Reader. New York: NYU Press, 2000.
Nelson, Hilde Lindemann. Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair. New York: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Pagitt, Doug & Tony Jones, eds. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007.
Pinchbeck, Daniel. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007.
Rivkin, Julie & Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. 3rd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Scott, William Henry. Cracks in the Parchment Curtain and Other Essays in Philippine History. Manila: New Day Publishers, 1982.
_________________, ed. German Travellers on the Cordillera (1860-1890). Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1975.
_________________. Of Igorots and Independence. Baguio City: A-Seven Publishing, 1993.
_________________. The Discovery of the Igorots. Rev. ed. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1982.
Suk, John, ed. Doing Theology inthe Philippines. Manila: OMF/ATS, 2005.
Teague, Dennis. Culture: The Missing Link in Missions. Manila: OMF/ATS, 1996.
Van Den Muijzenberg, Otto. The Philippines Through European Lenses. Manila: ADMU Press, 2008.
Wilson, Laurence Lee. Skyland of the Philippines. Baguio City: Baguio Printing and Publishing Co., 1955.
It has often been pointed out that no ideal can be incorporated without the loss of some of its ideal character. When liberty gains a constitution, liberty is compromised; when fraternity elects officers, fraternity yields some of the ideal qualities of brotherhood to the necessities of government. And the gospel of Christ is especially subject to this sacrifice of character in the interest of organic embodiment; for the very essence of Christianity lies in the tension which it presupposes or creates between the worlds of nature and of spirit, and in its resolution of that conflict by means of justifying faith. It demands the impossible in conduct and belief; it runs counter to the instinctive life of man and exalts the rationality of the irrational; in a world of relativity it calls for unyielding loyalty to unchangeable absolutes. Clothe its faith in terms of philosophy, whether medieval or modern, and you lose the meaning of its high desires, of its living experience, reducing these to a set of opinions often irrelevant, sometimes contrary, to the original content. organize its ethics… and the free spirit of forgiving love becomes a new law, requiring interpretation, commentary, and all the machinery of justice — just the sort of impersonal relationship which the gospel denies and combats. Place this society in the world, demanding that it be not of the world, and strenuous as may be its efforts to transcend or to sublimate the mundane life, it will yet be unable to escape all taint of conspiracy and connivance with the worldly interests it despises.
- H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Meridian Books, 1957), 4-5.
“The Middle East remains the oldest established crisis in the world…. [it] remains the region that for years — centuries — has shown a capacity like no other to affect the destiny of the world.”
- Daniel Schorr, Cradle & Crucible, 16 -
Cradle and Crucible¹ is one of the most incisive analytical work on the social, political and religious problems in the Middle East. Part I of this book (”Longest History”) consists of five chapters dealing with a comprehensive historical survey of this troubled land from the 8th century B.C.E. to the early years of the 21st century C.E. Part II (”Sacred Ground and Sacred Ways”) has three chapters introducing the three great religions locked in a hate-love affair across the centuries — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
One of the articles in this work is “Christianity: And the Word Became Flesh” by journalist Charles M. Sennott in which he describes a Holy Week ceremony among the Greek Orthodox Christians as follows:
In the Old City of Jerusalem, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Orthodox Christians gather for the lighting of the “holy fires” the day before, Holy Saturday. It is a mystical celebration of the arrival of light that Christians believe Jesus brought to the world. The tomb in which tradition holds Jesus was buried is sealed shut and then ‘miraculously’ a flame emerges from a corner of the edicule, or empty tomb. Soon that light is passed by votive candles among the crowd packing the church. And suddenly a wave of light spreads out over the church and a loud cheer rises up in celebration of the new life that Jesus brings through salvation. The same light is taken by lantern to Orthodox churches all over Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.²
Obviously, this dwindling group of Christians go through this cinematic rite with pride. And rightly so, for the lighting ceremony is a fine display of their devotion to their duties and an added color to this tapestry called “Holy Land.”
I only wish though that they also pass the lantern to their Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic (Franciscan) brothers. For while this rite dramatizes the promise of the Resurrection, it also portrays these Christians’ failure to resurrect the unitive teachings of Jesus Christ which have been buried under the weight of pompous ceremonies, sectarian rhetoric, political intrigues, and physical violence.
We recall that just a few months ago, the Orthodox Christians brawled with their Armenian brothers in the same site where their Master was supposedly buried and raised from the dead. With all the verbal and physical infightings among the cross-wearing pious in this Holy Land of Blasphemy, it is no wonder then that Christianity has not contributed much in the resolution of the Middle East crisis.
We note too that fundamentalist Christians, especially the millenarian-crazed section of the Religious Right in the U.S.A., have fueled the fires of hatred and violence with their insistence that the Holy Land belongs to the Israelis only, notwithstanding the fact that the Palestinians have as much claim to this land as the Jews.³
In the same essay Sennot mentions that the Crusades was instigated by Pope Urban II to “unify the Christian forces of the continent to exert Rome’s power” and that massacres during this period were made with shouts of “‘Deus vult!‘ (God wills this!).” 4 Not much has changed since then for in the 20th century Britain and France, under the aegis of the League of Nations, carved up the Middle East without respect for ethnic heterogeneity. Later, the U.S.A would have been the perfect force to help bring lasting peace to the Middle East were it not for its misguided moves that further escalated violence (e.g. Reagan’s support of Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, G.W. Bush’s conquest of Iraq, U.S. bias for Israel).5 All these machinations were done not only in the name of Democracy but also in the name of Christianity.
This is not to gloss over the terrorism waged by fundamentalist Muslims with each bomb explosion resounding with “Allahu Akbar!” It is to say that terrorism in the name of Jesus is as detestable as terrorism in the name of Allah. It is to say that this Easter, when we pray for lasting peace in the Middle East we must not forget that the real Jesus we should pray to is not the Jesus of Sectarian Christianity and Dispensational Theology.
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¹ Fromkin, David, Zahi Hawass, et al. Cradle and Crucible: History and Faith in the Middle East. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2002.
² Cradle & Crucible, 209.
³ Hopes are now pinned on Obama for the implementation of the stalled Annapolis agreement. Among the books that helped me have a good grasp of the interplay of religion and politics in the U.S.A., especially of the American Religious Right’s political agenda and its influence on U.S. foreign policy are as follows: Black, Amy E. Beyond Left and Right: Helping Christians Make Sense of American Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008; Lanham, Robert. The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right. New York: New American Library, 2006; Balmer, Randall. Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America. New York: Basic Books, 2006; Edgar, Bob. Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006; Avram, Wes, ed. Anxious About Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004.
4 Cradle & Crucible, 212.
5 cf. John T. Rourke & Mark A. Boyer, International Politics on the World Stage, 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 121.
Related Post: “Quotes from Kingdom of Heaven“
Six years ago, I was involved in the establishment of a congregation of the (Stone-Campbell) Church of Christ in Baguio City. Heady with the bright prospects of a new, vibrant, non-traditional (well, outwardly at least) church, our mission team set out to craft its mission, vision and core values. After a brainstorming on what we envisioned this new work to be, the team tasked me to organize and write out these statements.
Taking cue from the Saddleback Community Church’s statement of core values, I used a part of our church name, “Central,” as an acronym (or acrostic) to spell out what principles our church wanted to uphold. I must confess though that when composing these statements I had a particular agenda in mind — a gradual shift away from the sectarian beliefs and practices of our fellowship. Those in the know may detect the issues within the Churches of Christ this set of pronouncements alludes to.
Although I already left the denomination, I still hold these core values as my ideals for a church — whether one hears among these lines a call for reform in a tiny section of Christendom, or the undertones of a naive zeal.
Christ is the center of our ministry; He is the sun, we are the rays. As rays, we are called upon to glow in some dark corners and, in so doing, give back the glory to Christ. We bow to no banner but that of the Lord of Lords.
Evangelism is our way of life; we shall strive to preach Christ both by speech and action.We believe that, as someone has well said, “If no one reaches out, no one gets touched.” It is God, not us, who sets the boundary of His Kingdom. We believe in growth, not swelling. We do not believe in a method that seeks to convert people by capitalizing on their emotions. We abhor making money out of religion. We reject a mercenary way of preaching.
Nurturance is our commitment to one another and to other Christians; we exist to help others grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We believe that each Christian has an important role to play in the Lord’s Body.
Truth, as found in the Scriptures and elsewhere, is our guidepost in our earthly pilgrimage. We believe that Truth must be taught to people in the spirit of humility and love so that our calls to those outside the faith may not become the very barrier to their ears.
Relevance is our way into people’s hearts; the house of God is not only the pillar and ground of truth, but a hospital for hurting souls. The church is an organism existing not only for itself but also for the community to which it belongs. Relevance involves instituting needful and scriptural changes in the church so that we will not end up as tinkling cymbals full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Aspiration is our inspiration; we aspire for greater work for God’s greater glory, a grander purpose in life and a greater hope for better things to come.
Leadership is servanthood and friendship; we value service over position, fellowship over rivalry, mentoring people over making monuments.We believe in participative leadership.
Christ says that He is ‘humble and meek’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
♥ Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1952), 55-56.
