BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol I, No. 11
Nov 17, 2004

 
 
 social criticism by
 Vicente-Ignacio de Veyra III

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Love In The Time of Racism
Part 2

BUT PERHAPS, in attempting to delineate what is directly dangerous and what is only indirectly so, and in allowing myself what is often avoided by mainstream thought, which is the examination of what shapes dangerous racisms beyond the pale of jokes (a 1920s Jew's exploitation of an impoverished German consumer and labor market, a black American's rape of a white man's daughter, or whatever small or large thing), might qualify me as racist myself in the eyes of some readers, depending on where they come from and what they would rather hear from what Americans might call a Democrat. Perhaps my balancing will never be enough to some, clamoring for more examples of the other’s racism.

Secretary Pagdanganan's "joke", and I would tend to believe he wanted to be funny (admittedly tastelessly), was deplorable. For my Visayan readership, I had to add in the first part of this essay the disgusting Bulakeno regard upon colored (not white) ceilings as pejoratively a Bisaya architectural quirk (Pagdanganan hails from Bulacan, as does my non-racist wife). But I was not about to rally my fellow Visayans to stone Pagdanganan and so veered away from sheer condemnation to the examination of a more deplorable farming of racisms within society. And I believe Ms. Yuchengco, the Chinese-Filipino magazine editor who walked out of the hall, would also acknowledge the reality of business and consumer and labor crimes committed by wealthy Chinese-Filipino businessmen that go unpunished. The racism against Chinoys that results from this reality is unfair, of course, since Malay Filipino and even Western companies also commit the crimes. It just so happens, however, that jobseekers see more Chinoy bosses than not in their daily circulation of the job route. Add to that, the popular impression is that such elements as Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, etc. have been the prime lobbyists for the retention of certain questionable labor law loopholes that no one in Congress would dare touch (a supposedly pro-labor senator even sat in the board of a networking group that exploits money-seekers and consumers).

But this is not to say that in the Philippine context, less than elsewhere, Pagdanganan didn't say something wrong. What he said was deplorable, to say it again. We have seen, for example, how movies about homophobia demonstrate the potent combination of jokes and impending violence. And by Jonathan Swift's self-critique, that comedy is a produce of prejudice. However, especially perhaps in the Philippine majorial context, comedy does not always guarantee violence. This is the country, after all, where I saw so many of my comrades talk violently against Marcos in the "kanto bar" but reneged from their support of a demonstration at the last minute.

The dangerous racism I've felt, nay heard, here have been from those who weren't laughing or joking around.

But, on the other hand, the first part of my essay must not be read as an apologia for these grim-faced personas' positions. In the same way that talking about what sows the seeds of terrorism should not translate to a rally for terrorism, though perhaps it might be used by the terrorists for their propaganda e-zines. I believe that when racism comes from below, the search for a resolution (other than class-cleansing those below) must come from those above.

WHY SHOULD I write about this at all? Well, because I'm afraid. Although many say that this is the country that suffered Marcos for twenty years and then proclaimed a revolution in the streets when it was almost guaranteed safe, everybody calling themselves heroes for “being there” and not being anywhere while the martyrs were being captured or shot. No way what happened to Chinese-Indonesians in Indonesia a decade back is going to happen here, they say. This is the country of Christians with kind hearts, they add. Well, perhaps in that case I shouldn't allow myself to write grim warnings, then. I should simply join the rest in thinking nothing wrong is going on, pretend the workers are happy, and hope racism here will not go beyond the heckle.

But supposing a racist figure as popular as Joseph Estrada (different from the kind of Erap that coddled big Chinoy corporate interests) is to blossom from within an Edsa 6? What now? What if the racist figure lecturing people to abhor the current economics and its perceived sponsors happens to actually be a team of pseudo-nationalist generals? Product of imagination, perhaps, but still reason to be afraid some.

Racism is no more harmful in rioting Germany or Britain or the United States than in the jokes-filled islands. It pains me to be, as a Bisaya, the constant butt of Manila jokes. It pains me to see "coños" asking the traffic cop to give their Harley gang priority, the total disrespect the higher class race has for the lower classes. It pains me to hear a gay man declare "heterosexuals can't be more creative than us" just as it pains me to witness gay-baiting almost every minute everywhere in this nation of cowardly males who can't stand up to change our damaged culture. It pains me to see Christian fundamentalism in secular government, processions in national highways they wouldn't allow Moslems to have. It pains me to see racist (and relatives) crimes in the tabloids as the broadsheets tackle "more serious" matters.

But instead of standing up to bash heads, I can only do what I must. Join the rally for change. It just so happens that -- in the same way that it would be best to mail a letter to Pagdanganan than rally an angry audience to stone his house and soul -- I seek change from above, not below, criticizing the shortcomings of the former and what dangers they may be manufacturing. Of course I might come out like a doomsayer, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

Sure, Palestinians must change in the post-Arafat era. But there's more change to be expected from above than from below, that I believe. Certainly some Moslems must do away with terrorism to air their grievances, but should we always find the Bush "clean 'em up" way as the best way from above? Will it work? For how long?

Perhaps when it comes to this issue I'd be more of a Fascist than a democrat or Maoist in the sense that I don't think that the fight against racism can be effected by those below. Mussolini believed change must derive from the intelligentsia or power elite class. The difference between Mussolini and me is not only that I'd rather kill the disease than the perceived disease-carrier, but that I would tend to recognize any social disease as actually mothered by an anomaly above (whether a religious, ethnic, or intelligentsia elite, or all of these three). Racism breed racism, and it will not suffice to denounce one and not denounce the other.

PAGDANGANAN delivered his speech (with the ignorant and racist passage) in the United States to an audience of Fil-Am writers trying to promote Philippine and Philippine-American literature. But aside from the fact that to most Americans all Asians look the same, the Chinese (and Asians) in the USA are the minority (people below); in the Philippines, though they would be a minority in numbers, Chinese-Filipinos are perceived to be the "financial elite" (people above). The Chinoys in the Philippines would, therefore, be our equivalent to the Republican-backing corporate world of America. They are perceived to have brokered the candidacy of politicians and have been regarded by the masses as the virtual government running the laws of this country. I challenge any group to do their own formal survey/poll of the masses in regards these attitudes. One can begin by looking for racial stereotypes in major Philippine literature and cinema; they can tell me if what they see is not telling of a rampant “racist” view from the intelligentsia.

Do I, by focusing on those above, become racist towards them by necessity? This is how I would answer that query. Were I a communist and wise, I wouldn't campaign for the candidate who would make this country a better place. Wouldn't I just love to watch the land go in shambles under a powerful despot or plutocracy?

LET ME NOW give you a backgrounder on Pagdanganan.

Roberto Pagdanganan has been projecting an image of himself in the Philippine political arena as a poor boy that made it into the corporate world and its high echelons. I wonder if this experience broadened a racist perspective that he had against the Chinoys, in the same corridors he paced, dining with them, dealing with them, laughing with them, or whether it erased it after having befriended so many of them. But one thing is certain. He prides himself as more of a “Tagalista” than an “Inglesero” type of corporate, and later government, man; prides himself for having the personality that propelled him to the governorship of Bulacan, the Magsaysay personality that can talk to a farmer in Bulacan Tagalog. His vice-governor and now second-term governor, Josie de la Cruz, emulated this personality.

I suspect that politics is at play here. Farmers have a disdain for Chinoy traders who seem to earn more from farmers’ produce and months of sweat. Perhaps from a feeling of triumph at having found his political base, Pagdanganan may have pandered to the farmer with the latter’s views and jokes, assimilating this culture and perspective further into his speeches (developmental communications-fashion) to in turn deliver his developmental views and mission. After all, he has been credited for the widespread establishment of cooperatives in the Bulacan region, now being extended by his protégé, Governor de la Cruz, to the small-scale food processing industry of the province. This system or mission has also been adapted by the Department of Agriculture under Secretary Arthur Yap, a Chinoy, in seeking to eliminate middlemen and create a farmer-to-market situation wherein farmers become their own traders, keeping more of the mark-up profit to themselves while lowering the cost of the produce to the consumer.

It is against this background that Pagdanganan might have seen himself as a great achiever in having uplifted, nay empowered, the “farmer Pinoy”. It is against this background that Pagdanganan might still carry with him the belief that he can propagate the same zeal and attitude in any indio anywhere to be able to erase the hatred for the Chinoy trader by becoming successful himself. In this sense, he might in the long run be in the mission to eliminate racism by eliminating the envy. And against this background of achievement, acknowledged even by Chinoy technocrats like Arthur Yap as commendable, he might have seen his triumphs as a missionary to be universal in context. Alas, he was mistaken. For in the final analysis, though his end achievements of farmer empowerment in Bulacan may be said to have justified his speech means, yet we all know that it will always be the means that will be examined and judged. For while Pagdanganan may in his contribution have weaned the farmer Pinoy from the latter’s unimaginativeness that hampered the farmer sight from alternatives to the usual, Pagdanganan may have likewise reinforced the racism among the folk.

And what is this folk racism? It is not merely culled from envy, it is also rooted in what the novelist Bino Realuyo calls the “politics of the face”. So the landlord’s fair-skinned mestizo son might be “bakla” who can’t handle a sickle, in the same sense that in campuses pretty faces aren’t expected to be intelligent. As in rock music the demand is that the pretty-faced should be marketed as the greater rockers. I agree, the politics of the face is everywhere, from Mexico, Pampanga to Acapulco, Mexico and back in the hiring offices of Makati.

And it is everywhere in Manila these days. It’s in the laughing bunch of tambays at a billiard saloon heckling a young Chinoy couple at the taxi stop, it’s in the laughing trio of Chinoy or Tisoy execs at Starbucks laughing loudly at a young low-wage yuppie girl with her waiter-boyfriend with the hollow cheeks passing by. But the politics of the face can also be a politics of pride. It’s in the anger of a red-faced industrial partner of a web design studio who scratches his Chinoy boss’s car and proudly beats his own brown chest, congratulating himself for the rage. It’s in the anger of the fat Chinoy at the mall door asking the malnourished guard trying to inspect his bag, “di mo ba alam kung sino ako?” (“don’t you know who I am?”)

Pagdanganan’s racial slurs are no less inappropriate here than in the U.S. To say so will underestimate the gravity of the Philippine situation, the situation that I in this column attempted to paint.

Fil-Am as well as Filipino writers must fight in the great war against racism, though it be quite a tall order. We must fight it in all the hills of battle, and it will be fine to see everyone ranting and wanting to fight it in their respective hills of focus. It will be quite a reassurance if, though we derive from different tribes or political leanings or class or skin color, and come armed with the materiel of different experiences past and current, we can agree on the need to fight it.

There’s the bright picture we can begin to paint.

Posted at the Bananacue Republic website 11/16/04. Send your comment to [email protected]

"Were I a communist and wise, I wouldn't campaign for the candidate who would make this country a better place."