A Collection of Personal Thoughts centered on the theme of Philippine Gothic Pessimism, Magic Realism, Dark Humor and related stuff

8/7/2019 A Collection of Personal Thoughts centered on the theme of Philippine Gothic Pessimism, Magic Realism, Dark Hum

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A Collection of Personal Thoughts centered on the theme of

Philippine Gothic Pessimism, Magic Realism, Dark Humor

and related stuff

by rufus

1. The whole family was poisoned, after drinking from water taken from their well. The story

was that after the rain, juices from the decaying bodies in the nearby cemetery seeped

underground and made contact with the water supply. The family probably tasted something

weird with the water but did not make such a fuss with it, probably just boiled it or something.

This occurred somewhere in Masbate Island several decades ago.

2. Another story says the landlord-owner of this huge hacienda filled with miles and miles of

coconut trees is actually an aswang, a shape-shifting human viscera eater. The people rarely saw

him walking in the morning. Usually he comes out of his house by sunset, when the bats are just

flying out as well. Stories are told in the village about strange noises at night. People are

respectful of him and he often helps those in need. This was in Ilo-ilo.

3. There is a creature called a sigbin, which is a mythical sort of animal people speak a lot about

but no one has ever took a photo of, or a video. In the small mountainous town where my mother


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came from, there were talks of the death of some well-known manghihilot or someone who

massages those with ailments or uses traditional healing practices. This manghihilot, the people

say, has a pet sigbin which he keeps hidden. They say that a sigbin actually is a creature that

magically appears after one recites the proper incantations. The manghihilot kept a set of black

polished stones inside this handkerchief which he hides within the coconut clusters at the top of

this particular coconut tree. He was said to every now and then retrieve the stones. He would lay

the stones out, recite the words, and the sigbin would magically transform out of the stones.

4. My aunt was certain that the black thin dog that darted out of the bushes across the path they

were walking one night a long time ago, when she was just a girl, was an aswang. She said that

the dog had bright-red eyes. It is precisely for times such as what transpired, that people in her

village would never go out at night without carrying a bolo or sundang and a source of light.

Aswang can transform into any shape they like. Usually these are domestic animals such as dogs

or pigs or wild ones such as birds.

5. There are a lot of cults in the Philippines. Probably one of the weirder ones is this cult in

Ilocos which worships the dead dictator, human rights violator, and over-all bad guy of

Philippine history, Ferdinand Marcos. Of course there is an element of regionalism here. A

regionalism taken to a most deranged level. I don't know if they pray at Marcos, or pray to the

lord for Marcos, but in the end, there they exist, wearing white robes and bearing candles. These

cults are mostly derivations from several teachings of the Catholic Church. Another is the Apollo

Quiboloy 'Appointed Son of God Cult' in Davao. The leader of this group is a vindictive

megalomaniac who spouts various invectives against those who he claimed laughed at him while

he was down, while he was still poor and on his way to the top. What is interesting in this


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particular cult is that it has, like other several religious groups in the country, a good propaganda

machinery. They have radio and television stations with a lot of extremely badly made programs,

all talking about the greatness of Apollo Quiboloy, 'the appointed son of god.' Imagine Kim Jong

Il, only a Christian Kim Jong Il with delusions of being the messiah and of being persecuted,

then you have an idea about this guy. He only wears white, at least nowadays. I used to watch

him when I was younger on television, and he was 'normal' then - he wore barong tagalog, still

had a decent sense of humor. Somehow, something changed within that time span until his

current success (he owns a large mansion, helicopter, has hundreds of thousands of followers,

international scope of his ministry). One thing that is attractive about the Communist ideology in

the Philippines is that at least it is materialist and if it succeeds would not tolerate all these non-

rational things. However, given the history of the Philippines, with the more than three hundred

years of Christianity hammered on to the thought patterns of this society, it would be a long time

before the abandonment of the mythological mentality.

6. Urban legends can and must figure prominently in imagining a Filipino magic realism. The

problem however is on how to appropriate these into an original and organic whole. Something

that is natural, unartificial, or at the very least to successfuly present the appearance of being

natural, since 'nothing is more unnatural than the forced desire to be natural.' The writer then

must write 'out of' these knowledge and experiences, to re-imagine them and fit them into new,

relevant contexts. The writer must don the magic-realist mindset himself. The audience of course

must be able to understand the significance of this. And this takes a lot of thinking and effort. To

imagine a magic realist story in the Philippines would seem to be an easy thing to do, given the

already numerous examples above, besides the perceived cultural similarities with Latin

America, the place out of which the the style of magic realism developed (Garcia Marquez,


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Allende, Borges). But, what explains the lack of these types of stories? Why do they not exist

that much? I guess besides the inherent disinterest of the new generation in reading in the first

place, the socio-economic structure of the country itself is something to point as probable cause.

7. Humor. What is the current state of literary humor in the Philippines? The only book which is

humor of the literary type in the Philippines that I have read is a collection of short pieces by

Eros Atalia called 'Taguan-Pung: Manwal ng mga Napapagal.' This is excellent dark humor,

something that is very rare in Philippine literature. The various methods by which someone of

the depressive mindset or just plain suicidal would go about his business is the main highlight of

the book. A book in the Philippines about funny suicides? Need I say more? The various

ingenious plans the author devises for those who wish to end their lives in a most interesting and

even socially significant maner warrants our attention because underneath the humor, the

particularly dark humor, is a searing social commentary. Some prominent literary person

commented on this work that underneath the various shenanigans it is actually a serious political

work. Reading the book, there is a feeling of disgust over the political and social situation in the

country. By making fun of these ills, the reader takes time to think about them, to understand

them in a new light. Things are so bad in this country that the only option left to be serious is not

to be serious, or something like that.

8. There is this scene in this movie where the crazy rich beautiful lady is hysterical - screaming,

crying, screaming while crying. We know she is rich because they live in this large house. There

is her husband who is very handsome. And they have a lot of servants. She is wearing a white

sleeping dress, and in this particular scene we see her hunched up on the floor near the fireplace,

her arms wrapped around this kinda large pot filled with soil out of which is stuck a small palm


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tree. Then she starts eating the dirt from the pot. It is only the two of them in this room with the

fireplace. They are arguing while she is eating, or rather, the man is shouting at her. He wrestles

her down so she would let go of the earth bunched in her palms. She then collapses and the man

calls the servants to tend to their mistress. I don't know if it's our television screen or the actual

video itself, but the grainy quality was much effective in conveying the mental atmosphere of the

movie. It is dark and depressing. There are hints of suicide and all other non-wholesome things

in the background. It is a sort of grotesque elegance.

9. The setting would be an old, decrepit library with a lot of decaying old books. This is a large

two-storey building and it was abandoned several decades ago. Somehow the books are still

there. The protagonist finds himself sitting on one of the few chairs still intact. Dust is

everywhere. He inspects the collection and finds that these are mostly philosophical, religious

and literary books. Some encyclopedias. Another setting would be a cemetery. Large cemetery

by the side of a Church. At the center of the cemetery, there is a sort of small jail-like structure in

which are interred all these human bones, several decades old. He remembers as a child that he

used to look at all the skulls. He has memories of collecting the wax from candles at the top of

the graves. He remembers that most of his ancestors by his mother's side were buried here.

Somehow he feels a sense of belongingness. There is a huge tree near the centre of the cemetery.

At a certain time during the late afternoon, the shadow from the tree would fall onto the jail-like

structure housing the bones.

10. The importance of the anting-anting during the Philippine Revolution of the late nineteenth

century, as well as other radical mass movements - Pulahanes, tad-tad, etc. Macario Sakay wore


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this vest made probably of cotton or other cloth, on which is written various latin passages, and

are drawn several figures with magical properties. Magical bulletproof vest basically.

11. I am reading this book about magic realism entitled Magic(al) Realism by Maggie Ann

Bowers. On page 38, she references the Nobel Prize Lecture of the COlombian novelist Gabriel

Garcia Marquez 'The Solitude of Latin America.' I found the the full text of this lecture, which

was delivered in 1982, online in the Nobel Prize Committee's website. This is a wonderful read

and Marquez talks about the 'solitude' of Latin America, adrift, abandoned like a child by its

European parents. This struck me because if we talk about isolation and solitude, the history of

the Philippines, this little archipelago on the Pacific Ocean, speaks greatly about this condition.

Especially now that knowledge of the Spanish language is almost absolutely gone from the

general population (not that it was that popular to begin with), added to this 'isolation' therefore,

is a 'forgetting,' further severing the ties with the Spanish colonial past. This is a real problem

with regards to historical research since most of the documents, the primary documents for any

serious historical researcher in our country is in Espanol. God knows the numerous times I have

heard my teachers complain of the deteriorating knowledge of the SPanish language among the

history majors in the University. But the issue here is that if we want to write about issues of

magic realism, of isolation and solitude, there is more than enough of these stuff in the

Philippines. We have only to look at the convoluted history of this country, of the numerous

peoples that inhabit it, of the tragicomedy of Philippine political life, among other more unusual

occurences and beliefs, to realize that we share with Latin America almost the very same

sicknesses and qualities. Part of this, of course, is that we shared the same colonizers with Latin

America. An example of this great irony is of the name itself - Philippines, for several peoples to

be lumped together and named after some ancient and dead European king. Even now, writing


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this, I have a great problem identifying myself with the word 'Filipino.' Since I really do not find

much content and/or connection with the word, that's what it remains for me - a word. Thus it

would seem that I have no identity beyond my last name, that of my family's. The family then is

the basic structure of society in the Philippines. Marquez's most famous novel, Cien Anos de

Soledad, is about the history of the BUendia family of Macondo. Magic realism therefore, if it is

to emerge in the Philippines, goes beyond the idea of a nation, and onto something far more

authentic. This is not to say that it would be anti-nationalist. Far from it, the magic realist genre,

as it appeared in Latin America, has a strong social awareness, and it is strongly grounded in its

historical realities - those realities that are so unbelievable that they appear magical, fictional.

The tragic thing however, is that they are real.

12. Murders. I have recently read Ambeth Ocampo's latest book. I think it was entitled 'Dirty

Dancing.' (yes, this is truly the title of that book). And one curious thing that it mentions, among

others, is of this murder in 1617 of a friar by two or three other younger friars. The gruesome

details of this affair was described by Ocampo. In my own researches, specifically, of the Blair

and Robertson Volumes, there were several very interesting events, all tragic. During the late

eighteenth century, there was this incident where a young woman of around eighteen years old

jumped to her death from out of the window of a beaterio. Not much detail was given, other than

that she was mestiza. My imagination run wild with this, and I speculated that she jumped

because this lecherous old priest was chasing her and that instead of surrending her honor, she

chose death. (Noli me Tangere of Jose Rizal, the death of Juli, I know). Another curious event is

the murder of this governor-general of his wife, who was having a secret love affair with this

man who they later found out was a friar. It was all very dramatic and exciting, tragic of course.

I should have remembered the actual names of the documents, their volume numbers and other


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bibliographic stuff, but I reserve that for when I am to write really something serious about these

things. In the meantime you'll just have to trust me on these information.

13. Another story idea. There was this NPA soldier who was tasked by a village he has been

assigned to, to chase after this mysterious creature which has been wreaking havoc over several

villages in this remote mountainous town. After several days, weeks and months of pursuing this

monster, he finally manages to kill it. Going home to his base after this heroic feat however, he is

met by several military soldiers and is killed. The end. The character muses a lot about various

doctrines of communist ideology - 'being determines consciousness' etc. NPA soldiers are known

to set their camps and bases deep in the mountains to evade the military. It would be easy

therefore to imagine that they would come into contact with kapres, duwendes, aswangs, and

other creatures. Now, besides evading the soldiers, they have to contend with these creatures at

night.

How about: an NPA soldier who gets separated from his unit helps this old woman. As a gift, she

gives him this magical black stone, an anting-anting, making hiim skilled in combat and just

plain lucky and other benefits. Due to his abilities, the decades-long communist insurgency in

the Philippines finally succeeds. Jose Maria Sison, in the Netherlands, however dies, and the

Politburo appoints the NPA soldier as the General Secretary of the People's Republic of the

Philippines. Over time, he grows dictatorial, ordering secret executions of critics within the

government. Sort of like a Stalin or Mao or Kim Jong Il. An anarchist resistance grows

underground and finally ends up assassinating him, sort of like what happened with that Tsar in

Russia assassinated by the nihilists. The country descends into civil war as two factions vie for

power - the anarchists, a loose group of like-minded individuals , and the hardline communists


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who are much better organized (Spanish Civil War, 1930s). The communists win and the

government is restored. Meanwhile, hiding deep in the mountains, is a harried unit of anarchists.

One of them, a young woman, gets separated from the group. She happens upon this old woman

whom she helps. And in return the old woman gives her a magical black stone.

Documents

A Collection of Personal Thoughts centered on the theme of Philippine Gothic Pessimism, Magic Realism, Dark Humor and related stuff