Sowing the seeds of art
February, with one extra day this year, is the month wherein love is celebrated, and the arts as well. It’s over and I hope we continue to celebrate love and the arts throughout the year, all throughout our very lives. I think I contributed my modest share this month, to literature in particular, which is the noblest of the arts. Pardon me, then, dear readers, if once more I appear to bleat, and bloat, my self-esteem.
In early February, my 14th novel, The Feet of Juan Bacnang, was launched. Just like an earlier novel, Vibora, about the 1896 revolutionary general, Artemio Ricarte, it bothered me very much.
May this personal explication in the writing of fiction provide literature students with insights. The Ricarte novel first: from way back, with what I knew of collaboration with the Japanese during World War II, I had considered Ricarte a tragic hero; devoted so much to Filipinas, he agonized 30 years in exile in Japan — how could he have stayed away that long? — and returned to the Philippines on 1942 when the Japanese occupied the country. With a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Japan Foundation, I even stayed in Japan for six months, researching and writing there. I interviewed four surviving Japanese civilians who were with him in Ifugao where he fled from the liberating forces. It was there, in Funduang, that he died of dysentery, malnutrition and old age. I came across details that I did not use in the novel because these would have dirtied him. In the end, I realized he was not a tragic hero — just tragic. One saving grace, however, saved him from total perdition. He did not get rich; he suffered for his convictions. If he had been realistic, by April 1942 when it was already obvious to all Filipinos that the Japanese were brutal, he should have simply returned to his hometown, Batac, Ilokos Norte, and would have survived, unafraid of the guerillas, for which reason he fled with his Japanese allies in fear of them. I discarded many pages of the manuscript, and labored to finish the novel if only to fulfill my obligations to the Japan Foundation and to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
My experience with The Feet of Juan Bacnang is another story. When I showed the semi-final draft to my daughter, Jette, who is one of my editors, she said it no longer had the lyricism of my earlier work. This bothered me very much because, of all my novels, this demanded so much thinking. Could this be the reason why it no longer bore the spontaneity and verve of the other novels? Only my true friends and relatives will tell me the truth — so must I now stop writing? At 87, isn’t it time for a tired old hack like me to call it quits?
“No, Papa,” my daughter said. “There are still a lot of juices in you.”
That gladdened me. In the hope that these juices will not turn sour before I turn 88, I have started on this new story which had lain fallow in my mind for some time, inspired by one of the four novels I read when I was 10, My Antonia by Willa Cather. It will be in some ways similar, a novel of poignant memory, of a tender and affectionate relationship, of growing up, sacrifice and travail in a world ravaged by man’s inhumanity to man. It will be titled “My Esperanza.”
The Taboan Literary Conference
This annual meeting of writers held this year in Clark had for its theme, the literature of Central Luzon. National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario delivered the keynote address and Bienvenido Lumbera and I were secondary speakers. The Taboan, supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, has been traveling, giving focus to our regional literatures, which need to be acknowledged as part of the national literature. Well and good, but I told the conference organizers never to ignore the larger issues confronting us. For instance, the inequities and the impunity with which abuses are committed — what are the writers doing about these? We should emphasize our commonalities rather than the issues that divide us. I said that the minor languages like Pangasinan, Capampangan, Zambal — they will eventually disappear in perhaps another 300 years; we must keep a record of their literatures, translate them into English and Tagalog for posterity. When a language dies, it may no longer be revived.
During the open forum, this subject surfaced: Central Luzon and the agrarian unrest it has spawned through the recent past was also a major theme that pervaded the literature as written by several writers, among them the New People’s Army founder, Jose Maria Sison. I commented that Sison’s poetry was lousy, that literary standards must be applied in the critique of his literary work, and political standards to his politics.
These views notwithstanding, literary conferences are always welcome; the Taboan meeting enabled writers from other parts of the country to get to know one another, to share for two days a sense of community, a bonding that, hopefully, will last, this time made firmer by Pampango hospitality and gourmet food as only the Capampangans can cook it.
Binalonan, Literature And Education
I went to Binalonan, that very progressive town in Pangasinan, birthplace of the famous expatriate writer Carlos Bulosan, whose America is in the Heart is a must-read for all those interested in the diaspora and in the early experiences of Filipino workers in America. Binalonan’s energetic and innovative mayor, Ramon Guico III, invited me. He is one of those youthful leaders — well prepared to shoulder the tremendous challenge of bringing modernity and development to our rural people. He is a scholar, an airplane and helicopter pilot, an educator and a hands-on executive firmly rooted on native ground. To celebrate, Binalonan’s town fiesta and make it more meaningful, he had assembled the teachers in the congressional district and invited the district’s congresswoman, Ms. Kimi Cojuangco. It is unusual for politicians, and particularly provincial politicos, to be involved with writers and, frankly, I was impressed that I was asked to talk before a crowd of hundreds, maybe thousands, rather than just a group of 50 as I had expected. Mayor Guico is backstopped by his family, his mother, Arlyn Grace Guico most of all, who also believes in the value of education as the most important factor in development. Before an audience dressed for the occasion, Congresswoman Kimi apologized for being in blue jeans, but regaled her listeners when she promised them assistance from her father-in-law, the tycoon Danding Cojuangco.
Ramon Guico III exemplifies the new leadership which may yet lift this nation from the rubble of elite dysfunction and irresponsibility. He wants to develop agriculture, to raise high-value crops, and give the farmers a new mindset through education and example.
Every year, Binalonan celebrates the birthday of its literary icon, Carlos Bulosan. I told Mayor Guico every time I go to the Ilokos, I take my visitors through that roadside where a marker identifies his birthplace. He said that marker will be replaced with a more fitting structure and I told him to invite the writers in Manila to visit Binalonan when that monument or whatever structure rises will be inaugurated. That evening, in the town auditorium, I told those teachers why literature is important. It teaches us ethics, it restores and fortifies our memory which then binds us together as a people, as a nation.
Mayor Guico understands these: he wants me to go back and lecture at the university in Binalonan. I surely will.
Angara’s Artists’ Village
We motored a good six hours, past the Pantabangan Dam, and across the Sierra Madre to Baler — this isolated hometown — and birthplace of Manuel L. Quezon, the first Filipino president, and bailiwick of Senator Edgardo J. Angara. It is he who literally put this place on the map. I first went to Baler in the early ‘50s, shortly after the assassination by the Huks of Mrs. Aurora Quezon, her daughter Baby, and son-in-law, via another road — unpaved and tortuous then. I remember Baler as a tiny, secluded, forgotten town sitting on a narrow shelf below the mountain range, and before an ocean that is seldom pacific.
The day was auspicious. It was Baler’s town fiesta and the provincial capital’s shiny new hospital, built with the aid of the Japanese government, was being inaugurated by no less than President Aquino with the Japanese Ambassador Toshinao Urabe in attendance.
We met the presidential entourage in mid-afternoon returning to Manila and we got to Baler at around four o’clock. We were welcomed by Senator Angara’s daughter, Alex, and billeted in the town’s main hotel Bahia I, deceptively roofed with thatch, but definitely four-star quality inside. Baler’s present attraction is not only its historical significance and the fact that Senator Angara has spruced it up, but because it has also become a surfing mecca frequented by my son, Tonet, and so many local and foreign surfers.
The artists’ village which Senator Angara built — the first of its kind in the country — is reached through a coastal road; on the right, the Sierra range, coconut groves and verdant slivers of rice land, and on the left, the shining surf of the ocean. Then, up a one-lane cemented road to a narrow plateau surrounded by virgin forest that the Senator has turned into his eyrie — three cottages with thatched roofs, a gazebo in the middle of the grouping that serves as the social area. A distance away, winding through trees and a mountain stream clear as glass, is this huge structure of unusual architecture, built with the stones and timber from the place.
I had expected something modest in keeping with the scale of the place — but I can see immediately that the building was made to be not just formidable but permanent, that it is going to be the nucleus of other structures — the cottages — that will be built for the artists who hopefully find this isolation comfortable, the very sanctuary for them to fructify their creative dreams.
Mexican ambassador Tomas Calvillo and the Senator cut the ceremonial ribbon in the presence of three National Artists, Virgilio Almario, Benedicto Cabrera and myself. It was drizzling — a very good omen — when the program started, attended by the artists of Baler. The folk dances included the first presentation of an Ilogot war dance.
I have always admired Edgardo Angara for his munificent contributions to this country, contributions for all of us to benefit from; his championing — of the elderly, agriculture, education, you name it — and now of the artists; this village is the latest manifestation of that commitment not only to culture but to this nation. He is now in his 70s serving his last term in the Senate and I worry how his projects such as this artists’ village will be maintained. He said that perhaps his son, who is now in Congress, will succeed him. That act would be difficult to follow. I hope the people of Baler, of the province of Aurora, and most of all, Filipinos who recognize the marmoreal validity of such efforts will support Ed Angara’s significant initiatives.
Literature And National Security
My last personal activity for the arts month was a lecture before the National Defense College students at Camp Aguinaldo on the subject of “Literature and National Security.” At first, I thought of foregoing the assignment but then I got to thinking about National Security, our two ongoing rebellions and the other forms of turmoil — the food security, for instance, which we do not have. I recalled how literature, as an art form, developed from wars in the ancient past, the heroic epics, how literature builds national identity and consciousness.
I asked the students if they knew that it was Mao who said that an army without culture is a dull army that cannot defeat the enemy; if the army has libraries, that will promote cultural knowledge. I criticized their reading list, which had so many titles on culture as anthropology but none at all on culture as art. I hope that they will consider that remark and improve their reading list, and perhaps invite other lecturers in the arts.
How may literature or writers contribute to the national security of any country? They can — but in a rather convoluted manner, by fostering through their work a sense of unity, of community. I recalled how, during those bleak martial law years, a song — not a novel but an art form just the same — Bayan Ko, struck an immediate and responsive chord among us: a Tagalog kundiman, investing all Filipinos of whatever ethnic group with that vaulting love of country. I recounted how in the past, during the Japanese occupation, the writers Manuel Arguilla and Rafael Roces were executed by the Japanese for their guerilla activities, and much, much earlier, Rizal — his heroism in writing those two novels, and how he gave up his most precious possession for this unhappy country. In the end, I said writers must not be judged only by their writing but also by their very lives, and perhaps, by how they also die.
