Pepe Diokno

Me with Dr. Flores

What is the mission that drives you?

To inspire others to engage with art. It’s difficult to teach the audience to look at art or to understand it, but I think the marching order for us is to get them involved; to have them engaged.

For many people though, art is seen as a frivolity. How do you tell struggling family that they should pay more attention to art? Why should they?

For me, the notion of art should be broadened. Art could be about creative form — how you fix your garden, how you dress up, how you combine colors. If aesthetic education is about this, then you’ll get a broader response, and people will not get intimidated and say, “Oh, art is only for the elite,” or “It can only be found in museums.”

Art is more important now because of our mediatized environment. People need training to see through images, to explain the context of images. This is very important. People don’t really know how to sort out or make sense of what they have in front of them.

We shouldn’t stop at gut-level engagement. If we have critical thinking, then we think about what we feel. Why do we like Vice Ganda, for instance? Without critical thinking we just say we like Vice Ganda, and that’s it. But if people develop a critical instinct then they begin to question certain things and also question themselves; why they behave the way they do.

What is the state of criticism in the Philippines?

There’s practically… none. The media is not hospitable to criticism. That’s the main problem — you want to write but where do you write?

Is it also a problem that many Filipino artists, or Filipinos in general, don’t seem to be receptive to criticism?

Ah, yeah, that too. (Laughs.) The personalistic culture; artists take criticism of their work as a personal affront and a diminution of their talent. But that’s part of it; that may be an occupational hazard.

What is the value in criticism, though? How does it help?

First, it develops a more nuanced level of discernment for everyone — audience, collectors, artists. Second, it also encourages and even provokes artists to level up or to go beyond their comfort zone. It also instigates the production of things; it prompts people to innovate, to move beyond what they have been accustomed to.

Looking at the art scene, what scares you?

Partly the hyperactive market. It’s scary, the prices. We don’t really know why certain artists are bought for a very high price, for instance. That kind of unpredictability in the market is scary. But the market has a way of correcting itself. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but this is a common sentiment.

Another thing that causes unease is the lack of critical discourse. Very few people are writing and writing critically. For me, that’s not healthy. In the absence of critical discourse, market discourse takes over and the market sets the value. They can say, “This is an important artist.” Critical discourse invites people to ask, “Why is this so important?”

Looking at the art scene, what excites you?

The activity. The production of talent. The Philippines is still a rich source. For me, in Asia, it’s Korea and The Philippines that are the most strongly positioned to produce something interesting in the very near future. And it has something to do with our historical context, our very dense layers of historical experience.

Thumbnails of these videos popped up on my Facebook feed — a neatly-framed screenshot of a man engulfed in flames, and a pixelated image of an officer lying lifeless on the earth. Like the video I saw when I was a teenager, I did not choose to see the thumbnails — friends had posted them faster than Facebook could take them down. Unlike before, however, I found my fingers moving closer to these pictures. As much as it shames me to say this, deep inside of me, I wanted to click.

Curiosity

With the ISIS video, what drove me was curiosity. For one thing, there was the unconventionality of the situation — death by burning; an act so cruel and archaic, it seemed incredulous it was being done today. But there was also the allure of the flames; the spectacle of fire. ISIS was tapping into a dark, twisted part of my psyche — the kid in me who liked playing with matches.

With the Mamasapano recording, I began to justify watching it by arguing that it needed to be seen. In the aftermath of the ill-fated encounter, media has been so full of noise from grandstanding politicians and quick-tempered warmongers that the facts of the case have been overshadowed by political agendas. This video represented a way to cut through the crap and see the truth about what happened.

I wrestled with these thoughts for a few days. Things just didn’t sit well with me, though. It couldn’t possibly be right, I thought, to watch the ISIS videos because it would be exactly what ISIS wants. And watching the SAF video would not bring me any closer to the truth — it would only lead me to make angry assumptions.

So, what I did instead was to read as much as I could. I read detailed descriptions of how Moaz al-Kasasbeh watched as flames inched closer and closer to the cage that contained him; how the fire quickly latched on his gas-drenched clothes; how his face writhed in agony as the heat engulfed him; how he screamed; how he curled up in a fetal position and stopped living. I read about how PO2 Joseph Sagonoy lay down on the dirt, trembling; how he struggled for his life; how a hand emerged and shot him with a gun at point-blank range — twice in the head, and then on the chest. I read that there was a man’s voice on the video, and I asked my friend, Mindanao-based filmmaker Teng Mangansakan, for a translation. “This will finish him off, this will kill him for sure!” it said, according to Teng.

I read about all that, and I realized I didn’t need to watch the videos anymore as my curiosity had been satisfied. More importantly, I was left with feelings of sadness, pain, and empathy for the victims and their families, and with this, I developed a burning desire to learn more about the issues.

Those who saw

Contrast that with the reactions of my friends who had seen the videos. When one friend texted me to say that he had seen the ISIS snuff film, he quickly changed the topic and started talking about his dinner. When another friend shared the Mamasapano video, he reduced his feelings to a sad face emoticon and ended his post with a call for more bloodshed. These reactions seem almost inhuman to me.

I can only understand those reactions by going back to where I began this column — the first time I saw a beheading. In a way, that experience took away my innocence because, after it, I never saw gore the same away again. I never again got that sick, blood-curdling feeling that came over me when I saw Nick Berg’s head get sliced off. I’ve looked at pictures of the SAF 44 corpses and felt no horror; on the day that I write this, I saw a New York Times documentary that showed the mass killing by ISIS of Egyptians, and I didn’t even flinch.

Perhaps it’s because my mind developed immunity to death videos. It is now able to tell itself, “These are just images. What you’re looking at is a screen. Don’t panic, you are safe.” And therein lies the rub. Whenever we watch these videos, our brains reduce human lives into a set of square pixels, creating a barrier between us and the gore on display. By doing so, we become detached spectators; players in the twisted theater that the murders have staged.

Front-row seat

Anthropologist Frances Larson recently wrote about this phenomenon in an article for Salon. “(The videos) draw viewers who watch unapologetically and viewers who watch despite their own deep misgivings, and the Internet offers everyone anonymity,” she says. “The camera promises spectators a degree of detachment, but the action is only a click away, and this combination gives the videos far greater reach.”

Larson continues, “The murderers are offering their viewers a front-row seat at their show; and what they want to show is their strength, their complete control and domination of their victim… The crowd is compliant too. By turning up to see the show, or by searching Google for the latest execution video, the people watching also have their part to play.”

Now, the horrors of this world will continue to spread on the Internet in these tumultuous, hyper-connected times. More and more, we’ll be confronted with the question, “To view or not to view?” The answer, surely, will not always be simple. But my point is this: choosing not to view does not mean turning a blind eye. Many times, it’s the option that allows us to feel, to empathize, to understand, to go deeper, to seek perspective. Many times, it’s the option that gets us to see beyond the screen.

* * *

On that note, if you’re interested in learning more about ISIS, The Atlantic has a long but illuminating piece by Graeme Wood, entitled “What ISIS Really Wants.” The article makes the point that ISIS is a religious group, not a political one, and that it is driven by the belief that it is an agent of the apocalypse. With this in mind, Wood puts forth a few well-researched strategies to stop the group.

‘A DAMAGED CULTURE’

Foreign observers have been pointing this out to us for decades. In 1987, The Atlantic published an essay by American journalist James Fallows, entitled, “A Damaged Culture: A New Philippines”. Nothing, perhaps, sums up our tribal mentality more beautifully than this piece.

“Filipinos pride themselves on their lifelong loyalty to family, schoolmates, compadres, members of the same tribe, residents of the same barangay,” Fallows wrote. “But when observing Filipino friendships I thought often of the Mafia families portrayed in The Godfather: total devotion to those within the circle, total war on those outside. Because the boundaries of decedent treatment are limited to the family or tribe, they exclude at least 90 percent of the people in the country. And because of this fragmentation — this lack of nationalism — people treat each other worse in the Philippines than in any other Asian country I have seen.” 

“Practically everything that is public in the Philippines seems neglected or abused. On many street corners in downtown Manila an unwary step can mean a broken leg. Holes two feet square and five feet deep lurk just beyond the curb; they are supposed to be covered by metal grates, but scavengers have taken the grates to sell for scrap… In the first-class dining room aboard the steamer to Cebu, a Filipino at the table next to mine picked through his plate of fish. Whenever he found a piece he didn't like, he pushed it off the edge of his plate, onto the floor. One case of bad manners? Maybe, but I've never seen its like in any other country. Outsiders feel they have understood something small but significant about Japan's success when they watch a bar man carefully wipe the condensation off a bottle of beer and twirl it on the table until the label faces the customer exactly. I felt I had a glimpse into the failures of the Philippines when I saw prosperous-looking matrons buying cakes and donuts in a bakery, eating them in a department store, and dropping the box and wrappers around them as they shopped,” Fallows continued. It’s painful to think that these words were written 27 years ago because they ring so true today.

‘REPRIVATE OF THE PHILIPPINES’ 

Last year, local news portal Interaksyon published an article that talks about Manila’s urban development but raises the same points as Fallows’.

 In the essay, “Why Metro Manila continues to deteriorate”, Spanish scholar Jorge Mojarro writes, “Dutch anthropologist Neil Mulders published a tiny but solid book in which he depicted the Filipino mindset. According to him, the main reason for the lack of social cohesion in the country is Filipinos make a very deep distinction between two spheres: the public and the private. The private sphere belongs to the kin and friends, and utang na loob obliges one to reciprocate help, support, favors, and even money. The public sphere, on the other hand, becomes the jungle where anything is valid in order to bring commodities to the private sphere."

 "Therefore, street vendors are allowed to occupy sidewalks and sell anything there... Some barangay outposts and small police stations occupy entire sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk on the road… Then we have the big companies distributing electricity: Their huge posts occupy free of charge big portions of the streets... Lastly, we have the businesses (banks, restaurants, convenience stores, etc.) using the sidewalks in front of their establishments as their own private parking lots," he continues.

 "We also have the eternal issue of traffic, something that is technically easy to solve, as Benjamin De La Peña has proved in a series of articles on urban planning, but is permanently delayed due to the pressure of the [private-sector] public transportation lobby (buses and jeepneys) and the lack of vision of public servants… Filipinos tend to distrust other Filipinos in public spaces, lack of courtesy is the rule, and the much-touted bayanihan is blatantly absent. The Republic of the Philippines should perhaps thus be referred to as the ‘Reprivate of the Philippines’ to reflect this apathy to the notion of sharing responsibility for public space," Mojarro ends his article saying.

 ‘SHALLOW CAPITALISM’

I’d like to cite one more piece. This one talks about how our family-centered mentality affects our economy. It's a blog post by Richard Javad Heydarian, entitled, "Philippines' Shallow Capitalism", and it was published just a few weeks ago by The Huffington Post.

"The Philippines, shaped by its colonial legacy, has emulated Western lifestyles and urban architectures. But it has not truly modernized, at least in the Weberian sense. We are yet to see truly rational, impersonal state institutions, which stand beyond patronage and personalized politics. Even much of the business sector is dominated by few old families, so it is preposterous to talk about 'free market' competition," Heydarian writes.

"Modernity is not about having big shopping malls, wearing global brands, and preaching liberal socio-political values per se. Those are only manifestations of modernization, not the core of it. Modernity, above all, is about placing efficiency, meritocracy and knowledge above connections, patronage, and discredited traditions. This is precisely why many of the Philippines' neighboring countries, which have held onto much of their cultural heritage, stand as significantly more modern and prosperous: Social mobility, merit-based success, and knowledge-intensive productivity are incredibly more visible in places such as Taiwan or South Korea than the Philippines," Heydarian continues.

"The Philippines' rapid rates of economic growth in recent years haven't brought about an egalitarian, modern form of capitalism… Perhaps it is time for the Filipino elite to rediscover the true meaning of modernity, democracy, and progress. And for the wider population to fight for genuine prosperity," he ends.

PAPAL, DON'T PREACH

This is why Pope Francis' message frustrates me. At best, his message is a distraction; at worst, it's destructive, dangerous, and a downright mistake. When the Pope talks about the "importance of protecting our families, and those larger families which are the Church," he reinforces the twisted nature of Filipinos to protect only the people that we're affiliated with; to care only about our own social circles and place our wellbeing above others'. Country above family — that's the way it should be.

Fallows wrote that Filipinos need "to look beyond themselves rather than pursuing their own interests to the ruination of everyone else." True goodness, after all, is about caring for people even when they are not related to you; even when they went to the rival school or pledged to the rival fraternity or live in the opposite barangay or subscribe to a different religion. Looking out for the greater good, after all, is a sacrifice. It means giving and not expecting anything in return — even when it hurts ourselves.