Action speaks louder than wang-wang
On July 26, 2010, the recently proclaimed president of the Philippines, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) before the people of the Republic of the Philippines. Meanwhile, outside the gates of the Sandiganbayan, a mass of cultural workers, political organizations, artists, and concerned masses rallied together to conduct their own SONA ng Bayan (SONA of the People) to appeal to the democratic conscience of the new administration and challenge the incumbent president to address the prevalent yet long-ignored issues of the marginalized and the oppressed. Particularly the artists were frontliners in the call and challenge to the new president for an extensive and vigorous social reform. The SONA ng Bayan was replete with artistic flourishes: the theme of a carnival to symbolize the current state of Philippine politics, the moving effigy of the incumbent president, the music and poetry of artists and cultural workers who lend their voices to the call for widespread social reformation and systemic change. After nine years of corruption and repression, the Arroyo Regime had finally come to a close, leaving in its wake a wash of blood and an emaciated state of culture and arts. With its deceptive, undemocratic liberalization and globalization policies, the state had marginalized local artists and cultural workers through its support and importation of foreign merchandise and products. Reduced to contractual work without enough benefits and brought under constant threat of censorship, Filipino artists suffered no paltry abandonment from the state. Through the National Artist Awards fiasco, the Arroyo Regime had also managed to get away with the degradation of the cultural sector by doling out the prestigious awards as political favors to her cronies Cecile Guidote Alvarez, Carlo J. Caparas, and Pitoy Moreno, in spite of national dissent. The task of artists in the formation and molding of a new, progressive nation, of a people who are critical and knowledgeable of themselves, cannot be underestimated. As vanguards of the people’s right to freedom of expression and proponents of fundamental social criticism and interrogation, artists are vital to the preservation and protection of democracy. Under the office of the new president, artists must continue to be vigilant in their scrutiny of state policies and decisions. Already, President Noynoy Aquino has shown lapses and indiscretion in the appointment of Butch Abad and his son as the Department of Budget and Management Secretary and Chief Presidential Management Staff. The wife, Henedina Abad, is herself ready for Vice-Chairmanship in the Committee on Appropriations in the House of Representatives, The new administration has also refused to speak on the mass dismissal, without due process, of the workers of ABS-CBN, who had called for the management’s recognition of the labor union and the change of their status from contractual to regular workers after as much as 15 years of service. Similarly, no comment was made with regard to the liberalization and globalization policies that had so degraded the state of culture and the arts. Even on the issue of the workers of Hacienda Luisita, a matter of his own family’s production, President Noynoy has chosen not to speak. This silence is ominous and rend with dangerous implications. Indeed, artists, and the entire Filipino nation, in spite of the hope and the promise fostered by the new administration, cannot let their guard down.
