Poverty is but a symptom of capitalism. We live in a sewer sort of like like Russia before the Revolution or Cuba before the revolution. This sewer is rampant with excess individualism, excess waste, promotion of a tourist mentality that promotes prostitution, and commercialism. We the people, are ready for change.

Brandon

You can just save the image to your computer. Upload an image in your post using that saved image.

If you want, you can right-click on the button and click copy link location and attach it to your image in your post, so that it links back to http://blogactionday2008.bloggerskapihan.com/

http://kaiserfernandez.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/poverty-during-christmas/

I attached the button I got from the international site.

And one of my students too:
http://pisayvoices.com/2008/10/15/of-dota-and-poverty/

Memos on Poverty and the Imagination
Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 No Comments
Labels: Arts

In line with Blog Action Day 2008’s call on poverty alleviation and on discussions and stories about overcoming it, the Pilgrim is gives a “little lecture” on how poverty figures in the Filipino imagination, and how this same imagination reflects the current state of the nation.

The first time I watched Lino Brocka’s Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon), an adaptation of Edgardo Reyes’ popular novel in Liwayway, I myself was fascinated by the bluntness of realities depicted by the film. The story is allegorical, and in fact very much in tune with its own days of disquiet (it is known to have added so many things, like the rallies against President Marcos, and many others not in the novel). You have there a woman, a beloved named Ligaya Paraiso, whose name carries everything we all yearn to achieve, or to be gifted with in the more Christian sense, towards the end of life’s journeys. But the surroundings, and the main character, Manila, shows the complete contrast of happiness and all things edenic. Ligaya, like many other barrio lasses in lots of Filipino stories, was forced to find a better future in Manila, only to be enslaved by a Chinese businessman who found and saved her from a sex den. Her barrio lover, Julio Madiaga, followed and sought her in the city, and was consequently caught in the urban quagmire, which first claimed the life of Ligaya, and in the last frame, his very own.

The quietude of countryside, continuously portrayed as slow and unproductive, is the ideal and romantic space being deserted by the characters in search for better opportunities. This classic film however magnified the ironic darkness that is the city, by showing its decay, and how everything it touches dies. As a Third World testament, Maynila is not only allegory, but also an elegy to a country buried under poverty. The rawness of the film, the blood and gore, and the utter anguish and disillusionment of the characters which led to their deaths echo the cries for help of many Filipinos who could not save themselves from the shambles of being poor. Decades after, Maynila’s imagery could still be found all around us. And it seemed to have worsened. Literature, and more so, art, which are not mere reflections of life, but embodiments of life itself, has never gone wrong in imagining the realities. As if it had a vision of things to come, literature, in both Maynila the film and Maynila the novel, had shown us that the likes of Ligaya and Julio would never die. In Maynila’s time, poverty might have become an enterprise, and an entertainment idea that sells like hot cakes in international film festivals. But the subtle commentary says it all, and perhaps this is one reason why Clodualdo “Doy” del Mundo, Jr., the mind behind the Maynila screenplay decided to add a sequel, Aliwan Paradise, where Ligaya and Julio still lives and struggles, and are turned into objects of entertainment. Popular culture has perpetrated this attitude towards poverty through other media, most especially, in television, where feudalistic order is still persists, and where the likes of Marimar suffer in the hands of landlords only to be redeemed by deus ex machina and glamor. Remember that she also left her home, the beach, another face of the rural, in order to fulfill her destiny. These plots will keep on hunting us, unless we get to the root of the problem.

Despite the Philippine government’s report that the country shares the economic health being enjoyed by the Asian region, in the face of an impending economic depression in the West, popular surveys still affirm that a big number of Filipinos feel that they are poor. With no where to turn to (the government is corrupt, the system is corrupt and moral values are corrupt), these people make both ends meet to survive. Some of them, like Ligaya and Julio, troop to the urban centers to try their luck. This diaspora has already crossed the borders of the local, with the continuous deployment of Filipino manpower in the global arena. They too have been lured by the city lights of urbanity which has taken different forms today. Day by day, people flock the offices of the Philippine Overseas Employment Authority, searching for the elusive but promising job abroad. Poverty is forcing thousands of Filipinos to leave behind their families to work away from home.

Art has also imagined their “adventures” as new heroes (bagong bayani, Overseas Contract Workers, Overseas Filipino Workers, and most recently, expats) in different works of literature and yes, films. Vilma Santos’ Anak is one great testament to the challenges faced by domestic helpers in Hong Kong. Sharon Cuneta’s latest flick Caregiver talks about how life in the country forces even middle class individuals to undertake some necessary sacrifices and risks in First World Europe. And Before all these, we had Nora Aunor’s ‘Merika, and yes, her landmark in all OFW films, The Flor Contemplacion Story, where she portrayed the martyrdom of the Singapore domestic helper who was convicted of murdering a fellow Filipina. The fact that people are still away, or are looking forward to leaving for greener pastures is a reality that really bites. Art, and even most recent novels, like Alvin Yapan’s Ang Sandali ng Mga Mata, bravely discuss these stories because we seem to be still blinded by dollar remittances that surge during the holidays, or the bravery of Filipinos in hijacked ships at the tip of South Africa. We should never be proud that our countrymen are not here. We should be ever indignant, the way we usually do whenever we are ostracized in foreign TV dramas or comedies. Art will never stop exposing our poverty, and the presence of OFW films is not actually a good sign.

Art sits in the realm of the imagination and it will always reveal what it sees. Its only politics is the politics of the truth, which in our plane is most of the time a bitter pill to take. When we stop to imagine, it dies. It’s a good thing that the Filipino imagination, as embodied by its art forms, are never impoverished. Poverty in itself makes it rather fertile and provides for artists a rich mine of material for works that could truly transform, and not only reiterate the complexity of human existence, and the many absurdities and estrangements it carries with it.

Poverty as imagined must not only remain as a static object. It must transcend discussions of beauty and irony. It is imagined by art for us, to wake us up, to shake up our stasis. It is meant to move us, so that we may always strive to search for the common good. The imagination fails when it is not able to change, and it is very integral for any society, because it is the repository of the collective dreams and hopes of the people who share and participate in its creation. Benedict Anderson has already taught us the notion of the “imagined community” and how we are being ruminated as a nation in various texts and contexts. To answer poverty, I’m offering art, and the imagination to be the ghost in the machine. Art and artists must make use of the imagination to not only create but to begin the change. They must remain courageous and steadfast in saying the truth, no matter how painful it is, and wherever it brings them. Poverty is a result of the many lies the powerful and influential create, at the expense of the needy. Thus, We must never fail to imagine, nor let imagination fail. It is our only hope in fully being free from poverty.