FEMINISTA
Benilda S. Santos Dr. Benilda S. Santos is a film critic, an essayist and a poet. She is also
a Filipino professor at the Ateneo the Ateneo de Manila Univer University sity,, and is currently the head of the Filipino Department of the Loyola Schools.
Field of Expertise Santos is considered as one of the contemporary experts in Filipino language. She is known to have helped in the translation of the 1986 election primers from English to Filipino. Santos has also served as director for Ateneo National Writers Workshop. She has worked with other distinguished scholars and writers. She co-edited Kung Ibig Mo: Love Poetry by Women, with Marjorie Evasco. Evasco . She also edited Ang Wikang Filipino sa Loob at Labas ng Akademya't Bansa, a compilation of essays on language by Virgilio Almario,, Galileo Zafra, Almario Zafra , Mario Miclat, Miclat, and Conrado de Quiros among others. Among her books are Kuwadro Numero Uno and Alipato. Kuwadro was part of the UP Press UP Jubilee Student Edition 2006. Her works have won in the National Book Awards and the Palancas.
MEDUSA
MEDUSA Ang salitang Medusa ay nangangahulugang tagapangalaga tagapangalaga at/o tagapagtanggol. Sa Mitolohiyang Griyego, si Medusa ay dating isang magandang dilag na kinaiinggitan ng lahat ng babae at pinakaaasamasam naman ng mga lalaki. Nagkarelasyon siya kay Poseidon, ang hari
ng karagatan, na asawa ni Athena. Nahuli sila ni Athena kaya pinarusahan niya si Medusa sa pamamagitan ng pag-iba ng anyo ng kanyang ulo. Ginawang ahas ni Athena ang lahat ng buhok ni Medusa at binigyan siya ng mukha na kapag tiningnan ay magiging bato ang tumingin.2 Sa tulang sinulat ni Benilda S. Santos ang may kapangyarihan ay si Medusa, o ang tagapagsalita / persona ng tula. Sa umpisa’y parang minamata at pinagsasamantalahan si Medusa ng lalaking tinukoy bilang nakapantalon at mainit ang hininga. Tiningnan nang tiningnan si Medusa hanggang sa masira at mawala ang pagkatao nito. Pagkatapos ay si Medusa naman ang nakapaghiganti at nagkaroon ng kapangyarihan sa lalaking ito. Tinapos ang tula ng mga linyang, “Namamangha ka sa liyab ng aking higanti? Ay! Ikaw ang hari ko’t guro, Lalaki!” Mula rito, makikita ang tema ng kapangyarihan sa akdang ito. Una, kung titingnan ang kasaysayan kung bakit naging gorgon si Medusa, makikita na ang kapangyarihan – kapangyarihan ni Athena kay Medusa – ay umiiral. Pangalawa, sa simula ng tula, tila nagsasaad ng kapangyarihan ang lalaki kay Medusa. Nagawa ng lalaking mangalirang ang buhok ni Medusa, madurog ang kanyang puso at gawin itong bato, at iba pa. Ngunit, pangatlo, naipakita rin ni Medusa ang kapangyarihan niya sa lalaki. Nagawa niyang matuyo, masimot at mapatay ang lalaki sa pamamagitan ng kanyang mga tingin. Naipakita ng tula ang pagnanais ni Medusa magkaroon ng kapangyarihan sa lalaking ‘nanakit’ sa kanya sa simula.
Ruth Elynia S. Mabanglo (born March 30, 1949) is a retired professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She was the coordinator for the Filipino and Philippine Literature Program. Her most recent publications were "Balada ni Lola Amonita" and "The Ballad of Lola Amonita" in Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers, edited by Nick Carbó and Eileen Tabios and published by Aunt Lute Books in the year 2000. Born in Manila to Fortunato and Miguela Mabanglo, she received a degree in Filipino from the University of the East, a Filipino language and literature master's degree from Philippine Normal College, and a doctorate in Filipino from Manuel L. Quezon University. Aside from teaching at University of the East, Manuel L. Quezon University, Philippine Normal College, and De La Salle University, she was a journalist with Taliba and Abante for a while.
Dumating ang impluwensiya ng Feminismo sa Pilipinas noong Dekada ’80 at malaki ang naging impluwensiya nito sa ating panitikan. Isang magandang halimbawa ng impluwensiya ng Feminismo ang nobelang nanalo ng Gawad- Palanca, Bata, Bata, Pa’no ka Ginawa? ng bunying manunulat na si Lualhati Bautista. Sa Feministang pananaw, karaniwan nang tanggap ng lipunan ang kalalakihan bilang siyang mas aktibo sa pakikipagtalik sa iba’t ibang katalik kung ihahambing sa kababaihan. Ngunit ipinakita ni Lualhati Bautista sa kaniyang nobelang maging ang kababaihan ay maaari ring maging aktibo sa ganitong aspekto. Sa mata ng mga Feminista, patriyarkal ang ating lipunan at kailangan itong buwagin upang magkaroon ng isang pagkakapantay sa pagitan ng kalalakihan at kababaihan. Para sa papel na ito, babasahin natin ang tulang Haranang Walang Buwan, maiikling kuwentong Greta Garbo at Kuwento ni Mabuti sa Feministang pananaw. Sisingitan din ng ilang pagsusuri sang-ayon sa Bagong Pormalismong Filipino ni Virgilio S. Almario upang bigyang-linaw ang panahon ng pagkakasulat ng mga akda. Haranang Walang Buwan Ang tulang ito ay isinulat noong Dekada ’70 ni Virgilio S. Almario sa ilalim ng sagisag na Rio Alma. Sisimulan ko ang pagsusuri rito sa isang Feministang pananaw sa pamamagitan ng paglalahad ng buod ng tula bilang ito ay isang tulang nagsasalaysay.
Isang hardinero ang nanliligaw sa dalagang anak ng kaniyang amo. Ayaw payagan ng mga magulang ng dalaga ang kanilang anak na magpaligaw sa hardinero. Nagsimula itong magsuka at sinimulan ding ikulong nang isang buong taon. Ang inakalang dulot ng pangungulam ay pagbubuntis na pala. Sa huli ay ibinunyag ng personang siyang hardinero ang nakabuntis sa anak na dalagang ayaw paligawan ng kaniyang mga amo. Kitang-kita sa pagkakagawa ng tula ang pagiging kontra-babae nito. Una, ang ginamit ng lalaking manunulat ay isa ring lalaking persona. Sa pamamagitan ng lalaking personang ito, ang hardinero nga, inilahad ang kuwento ng dalagang nabuntis niya at sa kung paano ikinubli ng mga magulang ng dalaga ang “kahihiyang” dulot ng pagkakabuntis dito. Sa puntong ito, mahahalatang hindi man lamang binigyan ng pagkakataon ang dalaga upang makapagsalita. Ang naglahad ng kapalaran ng dalaga ay ang hardinerong una ay lalaki at ikalawa ay masasabing lumapastangan sa babaeng tauhan sa tula. Ipinahihiwatig nito ang kawalang-tinig ng kababaihan sa ating lipunan. Maging sa pagbubuntis, kakikitaan ng pagkahiya ang dalaga sa tula at pagmamayabang naman sa panig ng lalaki. Sa buong tula ay ikinubli ang pagbubuntis sa panig ng dalaga samantalang inihayag pa ng hardinero sa huling siya nga ang nakabuntis sa dalagang ikinukubli.
SPOKEN People often view poets as hermits who stay away from the spotlight. But spoken word artists are different. They are also poets, but their works were written not just to be read, but also to be performed. Spoken word artists Abby Orbeta and Juan Miguel Severo from Words Anonymous — a team of Filipino performance poets — dropped by GMA News TV's "News To Go" on Tuesday to discuss the art form, which is growing in popularity in the Philippines. According to Severo, spoken word is a marriage of poetry and theater. In fact, both Orbeta and Severo are theater actors who also keep a diary and a personal blog.
Orbeta was introduced to this form of performance art after meeting fellow thespians who were spoken word artists in a play. Severo, on the other hand, got into spoken word poetry after failing to get callbacks during theater auditions. The performance art became his creative outlet. "Noong na-encounter ko po ang spoken word poetry, naisip ko po na this medium is perfect kasi ako iyong magsusulat ng sarili kong materyal. Hindi ko kailangan mag-audition, basta makapag-perform lang ako," Severo said. Spoken word is liberating
Both artists agree that spoken word is a liberating kind of art. It is like free verse, but more conversational. It does not have to rhyme, and using Taglish is okay, too! Although the pieces are memorized, artists are free to ad-lib. They can even sing some parts or perform with accompanying music. Despite its freedom, Orbeta and Severo stressed that spoken word poetry still has its own discipline. "Kahit papaano, elevated pa rin ang usage ng language kumpara sa normal conversation," Orbeta said. She added that artists should still use imagery, metaphors — in other words, their pieces should still be lyrical. They should follow a
narrative. "Mas lyrical. May narrative din po siya, May beginning, middle, and end din siya. Meron pa rin siyang pinupuntahan. May storya pa rin siya na dini-deliver," she said. "It's just poetry written to be performed. Hindi lang po para basahin. Hindi po siya impromptu kasi pini-prepare din po namin siya. Pareho rin po siya sa proseso ng pagsulat ng tula na i-go go through mo tapos may editing processes pa rin," Orbeta added. Audience in the Philippines
Word Anonymous just turned one last April, Severo noted. In just a year, the group has seen their audience grow from their own circle of friends to fans. "May [2014] po ako sumali, tapos kung sino po iyong magpe-perform, sila rin iyong audience. Kumbaga, nagpapalit-palitan lang po kami. Pero eventually, lagi na pong napupuno [ang venues]," Severo said. The group has also received invitations to perform in different cities. "Ngayon po nakikita namin ang paglago niya as an artform na ang ganda rin po ng reception lalo na ngayon kasi easily accessible kami dahil nasa YouTube siya," Orbeta noted. Based on their YouTube channel, the group indeed has quite a
following, with their videos getting thousands to hundreds of thousands of views.
Only the removed from Pinoy pop culture, only the elitist, maybe the ones who don’t listen to local radio, or even browse through the OPM section of the record store, would not know Gloc-9. Or maybe you’re one of those who’d rather not hear about the state of the nation, especially because its tragedies and poverties are a pointed finger at you.
Gloc-9's Talumpati album (2011) had as cover a work by visual artist J Pacena.
In her now defunct noontime show, Kris Aquino once asked Gloc-9 to rap. It was expectedly about hunger of some form or other. Kris promptly asked: Puwede yung masaya naman? Where lies the happy
On a recent rainy Friday evening, Gloc-9’s humility was a bright light. So was his honesty. He was talking about his life of struggle, the one that had brought him to the point of studying to be a nurse, the one that had made him imagine that rap wasn’t a career path that would allow him to put food on the table for his young family. He has since been proven wrong of course, but that’s beside the point. The point being that unlike plenty of Pinoys who gain an amount of fame and a wee bit of fortune, and are instantly changed by it, Gloc-9 seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. One that remains unaffected for the most part by the shiny things that fame and fortune can bring. He mentions being asked often: why don’t you wear bling? why don’t you wear those fancy jackets? Gloc-9 shakes his head at the absurdity. Siguro kung nasa Amerika ako, siguro kung yun ang konteksto ko. It might also be the answer to the question of writing English songs. More importantly, it’s a response to Kris Aquino. In fact, what’s most surprising is how the question of happiness even figures in the question of original Pinoy music (OPM): we after all know enough of its poverties to see that none of it can be happy. Not those ballads that speak of love, not those novelty songs on our daily shows, not that indie rock song you only hear at a band’s gigs. The conditions that surround the production of any of these songs speak of the sad state of music as cultural product in this country. There’s the lack of state support. The globalized music industry. The standardized aesthetic and taste that popular cultural entities, i.e., TV networks, create.
Gloc-9's Matrikula album (2009) is like a coming into his own.
And then there’s Gloc-9. He who seems to be looking in on the nation at the same time that he lives in it, he who on the one hand points a finger and on the other is actually looking at his own reflection. There is an amount of self reflexivity in Gloc-9, and it is revealed not just in the original Pinoy music that he creates, but in the processes of production it involves itself in, including of course living with eyes wide open in a nation that demands it. That he has seen more than many of us have, and that this has only fueled songs unlike any other in this country, now that might be the happiest thing. The tale of the rap icon
If there’s one thing that strikes you about Gloc-9’s humility, it’s the fact not so much of its sincerity, but of its touchstone: Francis Magalona. In words, in photos saved on his phone, in just the sadness in his eyes, Gloc-9 pays tribute to the man any Pinoy should know as the Master Rapper, the Man from Manila. He was, across Gloc-9’s life, a dream. Gloc-9 speaks of memories. Memories of listening to Francis Magalona’s first album Yo! (1990) and like the rest of the nation in the throes of post-EDSA 1986, becoming a fan. “Mga Kababayan" was our anthem, at least for those of us who also began to be enamored by the idea of OPM, the idea that there could be music to call our own. In the midst of the balladeers and rock bands, there was Pinoy rap personified in Francis Magalona. He who would later be known as his own ism, as a particular ideology: FrancisM. francism. And then another memory: walking home from school with a bunch of his classmates, and without knowing how or why Gloc-9 breaks into rap, freestyle. His schoolmates crowd around him, and he remembers liking how it felt, he remembers thinking: astig ‘to. By then FrancisM wasn’t just a household name, but had evolved into the nationalism he stood for. Anyone who speaks of the Master Rapper’s legacy must know that his was an artistry that evolved not just in terms of form, but even more so in content. My own memory is that of FrancisM on stage early into the EDSA Dos rallies against
Erap Estrada. He was singing a song that particularly allowed us all to scream: Isa kang ulupong! But Gloc-9 has more memories with FrancisM, the ones that happened when by some stroke of good luck, maybe as a matter of destiny, the latter took him on not as protege, but as anak-anakan (as he says in a televised birthday greeting), and as friend. Gloc-9 still seems surprised by it all, by the kind of friendship that he struck with the one person who could take credit for his dream of rap, but also the one person who made it possible for this to become career: yes, it now puts food on the table, and kids through school. - See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/216918/lifestyle/gloc-9-a-pinoy-rapper-andhis-painful-truths#sthash.MTADS8mO.dpuf
OPM according to Gloc-9
Diploma, matrikula, talumpati. No, these aren’t just words we equate with school as they are the titles of Gloc-9’s past three albums, the ones that marked a sense of accomplishment, the ones that allowed for one or two or three songs an amount of airplay, and some good ol’ recognition, always to Gloc-9’s surprise. But maybe it was no surprise that a song like “Sumayaw Ka" would do well, it is after all the kind of rap that gets more radio airplay where we come from, that gets some TV show or other to use it as theme, or that gets a smorgasbord of artists trying it on for size. The rap is slower, the point is to get people to dance, no depth needed: dance rap lives, and it’s in the beginnings of Gloc-9. In this sense “Lando" could only be the real surprise of the Diploma album, also because it is a clear indication of the kind of vision Gloc-9 would end up having in his future work: it’s one that’s not just about living in this nation’s poverties and writing about it, but about seeing the silenced and speaking about its possibilities. The taong grasa is the subject of this song, the story that might have brought him to the point of crazy and onto the streets.
Ito ay kwentong hango na galing sa dalawang taong / Nagmamahalan ng tunay ang ngala’y Elsa at Lando / At kahit parang pagkakataon ay nakakandado / Dahil magkalayo ang uri ng buhay ang estado. The story begins as a love story, as many things do in this country. But it begins too with Gloc-9’s ability at reconfiguring that story into words that speak of unfreedom, of being locked into the social classes we are born into. The repeated chorus of the song speaks to the taong grasa’s lone existence, the one that keeps people from caring, the one that tells him be unafraid, you are not alone. FrancisM sings the chorus in this, Gloc-9’s first runaway hit. That layer of meaning is difficult to ignore. - See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/216918/lifestyle/gloc-9-a-pinoy-rapper-andhis-painful-truths#sthash.MTADS8mO.dpuf
Matrikula is to Gloc-9, as Rap is FrancisM was to FrancisM. A coming of age of sorts, but even more so an insistence on a clearer and more stable identity as artist, as poet, as rapper in our context. Listening to Matrikula is like reading the story of Gloc-9’s life as lived on the streets of Manila, within a personal history that’s been difficult, and knows exactly who to blame for it, too. Pointing a finger never sounded as good as it does in “Upuan" (feat. Jeazell Grutas): Lumakas man ang ulan ay walang butas ang bubong / Mga plato't kutsara na hindi kilala ang tutong / At ang kanin ay simputi ng gatas na nasa kahon / At kahit na hindi
pasko sa lamesa ay may hamon / Ang sarap sigurong manirahan sa bahay na ganyan / Sabi pa nila ay dito mo rin matatagpuan / Ang tao na nagmamay-ari ng isang upuan / Na pag may pagkakatao'y pinag-aagawan / Kaya naman hindi niya pinakakawalan / Kung makikita ko lamang siya ay aking sisigawan / While the truths that surround this lamentation against politicians is in your face, and oh so familiar, the use of the chair as central symbol of power is also one that bravely speaks of class divide and difference, something that very little of OPM even dares talk about, nay insist on. Which may be said as well for the rest of that album, and even more so for songs that were released as singles from it. Bakit ganito kababaw isang pagkaing nilangaw / Ang dadamputin at kakainin ng batang gutom / Alam ba ng mga husgado at lahat ng hukom / Na merong mas masahol pa sa hatol na kamatayan / Yan ay ika'y maging mahirap sa sarili mong bayan In “Balita" (feat. Gabby Alipe) Gloc-9 takes it a step farther and insists: poverty is death. At the same time, many of the songs in this album insist on a fight: not just against the political structure, but even more so against destiny that dictates poverty in all its forms. - See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/216918/lifestyle/gloc-9-a pinoy-rapper-and-his-painful-truths#sthash.MTADS8mO.dpuf
