"My relationship with my country is purely mercenary: I cannibalize its suffering and turn it into art. And the only thing I can offer it in return is this declaration of guilt."
-Eric Gamalinda
Visited Galaminda's blog on the internet this morning for a perk-me up read. Ohh-nagising nga ako. Turns out he was here in Manila last November--Maybe the ripples of time and space rippled enough to disturb me that's why "My Sad Republic" (which I loved) was my Christmas holiday read.
The blog entry was off-putting for me at first I must say. He talks about how he hates Manila, basically. 18 years after leaving it for New York City. But he's just being honest I know. Who really wants to live in this place of decay? I'd leave this shit hole the first chance I get (to Paris of course). But can I? or would I? really?
I don't know what's worst to be honest, leaving Manila to be a lower class citizen somewhere or be a burgis-burgis "artist" in my own impoverished land. But how can I hate Gamalinda for pointing out the obvious? That really--Manila is a crazy place, a sad place even--but how can you tell that to the millions of people who still see this place as home? Who make the most out of it. It ain't so bad, or can I say it because I've been spared from poverty? Maybe, I can find fault in how he gets to diss Manila and leave for New York, while we wake up to/in it everyday.
His kind words to UP touched me though.
The University of the Philippines campus in Diliman. The looming trees, the rolling greenery, the verdant oasis of it coming from the madness of the city. Like Granada when one drives in from the harsh, barren moonscape of Andalusia, green and irrepressibly so. Although they have never recognized me as one of their own, I did spend two years here, in the Arts and Sciences building, and I consider UP my home. Not UST, which punished me for wanting to be myself, for wanting to seek and be creative, and spat me out, but UP, which took me in when I was down.
***We still read your works sir, we maybe few from my generation, but we'll spread the word
I've ceased to find fault really to all the Pinoy intellectuals who left. A revolution is what we need but how can I put up a battle cry if I'm comfortable enough to make a post about it on tumblr, watch TV and forget about it for the time being. Maybe I'm part of the problem, and its up to the masses--are they really that ignorant? or are they just so hungry they don't have any strength left in them.
I'm questioning the privilege that I've been given. I'm from UP after all. And yet listen to me. I get so riled up to critique all the burgis writers in English for their apparent narcissism (my alleged topic for the term paper) and yet that's all I'm willing to do before I go back and wait for all my torrent downloads to finish. Tinimbang ako, si Gamalinda ngunit kulang?
But more and more, I feel/know that I'll die here nonetheless. In this muck. A nation is just an imagined community--we are all wanderers--WHATEVER. I've lived here long enough, it's too late to change who I am. So I'll make the best of it. I've always felt that I'm damning myself to loneliness, I'll make the most of it. I still believe in Art after all--Can I let the young ones find hope in it? Or is it a disgrace what I do? To let the young hope and dream? --Do they even believe the things I say?
Conviction is all I got.
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