This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 43, December
4-10, 2005
Bonifacio Day Anti-Gloria
Concert Rocks UPLB It
was at the same time a tribute concert to poet-revolutionary leader Andres
Bonifacio – whose 142nd birthday fell that day – and a protest
concert calling for the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The concert
was organized by the Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria). BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
One of the stories
poet-literary scholar Gelacio Guillermo is fond of telling over bottles of beer
is that of his days as a young professor at the University of the Philippines in
Los Baños, Laguna. That was way back in the late 1960s. He used to travel
regularly, he says, from Diliman, Quezon City to Los Baños – and it then took
all of two hours.
It took me three
hours to travel from Quezon City to UP Los Baños last Nov. 30. It was late
afternoon and I knew I had to find a way to reduce my travel time so I could get
there by 7 p.m. A 15-minute ride on the Metro Rail Transit from Quezon Avenue to
the Magallanes Station did it for me, and I got to Alabang, Muntinlupa City in
less than an hour. From Alabang to Calamba, Laguna it took an hour, and traffic
in Calamba made it take an hour for me to get to Los Baños from there. It was
just a few minutes past 7 when I got there.
Most of the
artists who performed there had traveled from Quezon City and Manila hours
earlier, but I could imagine they went through the same amount of travel time.
But from the way they performed at the event, it appears they found it well
worth the long trip.
It was at the same
time a tribute concert to poet-revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio – whose 142nd
birthday fell that day – and a protest concert calling for the ouster of
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The concert was organized by the Artists for
the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria).
The concert opened
with actors Pen Medina and Soliman Cruz portraying Bonifacio and Philippine
national hero Jose Rizal, respectively. “Bonifacio” and “Rizal” went into a
short discussion – punctuated by poetic exchanges – about the need for ousting
the present President, with both in the end agreeing even as they acknowledged
differences in tactics.
“The rationale
behind that part is that we are giving a birthday tribute to Bonifacio in
Laguna, which is Rizal’s home province and where most of his descendants still
live,”
The exchange was
followed by a string of musical, theatrical, and poetry performances
interspersed with shadow plays and short video presentations. They were there:
Cynthia Alexander, Dong Abay, The Wuds, Radioactive Sago Project, The Brockas,
Agaw Agimat, Kwatro Beinte, Blazing Bulalakaws, Kilometer 64, Traumaligno,
ARTIST Inc., Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog
Katagalugan (KUMASA-TK), UPLB Umalohokan, Anino Shadow Play Collective, and
Southern Tagalog Exposure.
The concert
highlighted what was described as nine major reasons for ousting Macapagal-Arroyo:
electoral fraud, the imposition of the Expanded Value-Added Tax (E-VAT),
complicity in the U.S.-led war on “terror,” suppression of civil liberties,
refusal to grant workers’ demands for wage increases, environmental destruction,
corruption, refusal to assert sovereignty, and political killings. Most of the
performers injected their own commentaries on these issues in their spiels
before their numbers.
But there were
those who also performed pieces that directly addressed, or were improvised upon
to directly address, the said issues. Traumaligno did for its first number a
song opening with the oft-heard chant “Gloria Arroyo, pekeng Pangulo!”
(fake president). ARTIST Inc. and Umalohokan did skits tackling the imposition
of the E-VAT and the suppression of civil liberties, respectively. Kilometer 64
performed a long poem on the so-called “Hello Garci” tapes. Radioactive Sago
Project’s Lourd de Veyra improvised on their hit song “Baboy” (pig) and added a
few lines calling Macapagal-Arroyo biik (piglet).
Meanwhile, Dong
Abay sang his protest-punk classic “Trapo,” which hurls invectives at corrupt
politicians. The song was written and composed in the 1990s and does not refer
to any particular politician, but the audience had no trouble relating it to the
present political scenario.
After the
performances, Medina and Cruz would reappear – no longer as Bonifacio and Rizal
but as themselves, reciting verses ending with a call for the arrest of
Macapagal-Arroyo.
About 3,000 people
watched the concert. “This is a big crowd for UPLB,” said Prof. Dennis Aguinaldo,
who teaches at the university’s Humanities Department. The campus has an
estimated student population of more than 9,000 and the crowd was surely as big
as some of the multi-sectoral rallies that have been taking place in Manila.
UPLB was chosen as
the concert venue because the organizers wanted to show that major protest
actions can happen not only in Manila but also in the provinces, Dalena said.
The concert was
produced by ARREST Gloria and Southern Tagalog Exposure in cooperation with
Samahan ng Kabataan Para Sa Bayan, Alpha Phi Omega Fraternity, Beta Sigma
Fraternity, Pi Sigma Fraternity, Pi Sigma Delta Sorority, Sororitas Astum
Scientis, Forestry Society, Sigma Alpha Nu Sorority, Gabriela Youth, UPLB
DevComm Soc, UPLB Ibarang, UPLB League of Filipino Students, UPLB Anakbayan,
UPLB Writers Club, UPLB Sarong Banggi and Umalohokan – with special support from
Jhen's fastfood and take-out, Bonito's, Painters
Club, Gabriela-ST, Pamantik-KMU, and Bayan-ST. Bulatlat © 2005 Bulatlat
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