CULTURE
Three Front-Page Photos and a Plot for
the Nation’s Future
There are three pictures on the
Philippine Daily Inquirer’s front page for March 17, 2007 that present
an interesting insight on the state of the nation.
BY JPAUL MANZANILLA*
Contributed to Bulatlat
There are three
pictures on the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s front page for March
17, 2007 that present an interesting insight on the state of the nation.
On the upper half of
the page, the largest photo, is Satur Ocampo, arrested at the Supreme
Court. The Bayan Muna party-list representative reappeared in public eyes
to face the murder charges filed against him by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP).
On the lower left
corner of the daily’s cover is U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney playing
dama (Pinoy chess) with a Legazpi City resident. According to the
caption, the U.S. envoy “(inspected) the weeklong humanitarian mission
dubbed ‘Goodwill-Kaibigan’ being conducted by American Marines in
cooperation with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”
Just on the right
side of the Kenney photo is Ramon Magsaysay, third president of the
postwar republic, in a leaping position. The picture caps Sen. Ramon
Magsaysay Jr.’s remembrance of the original Magsaysay’s 50th
death anniversary, in time for a self-reflective gesture on his last year
as senator.
One photo reinserts
the past into the present, the other two photos battle to win the present
for the nation’s future. What do these three photographs show?
Following American
art historian WJT Mitchell’s call to go beyond knowing the meaning of
images, we ask: “what do these pictures want?”
Three
personalities
Ocampo, the present
margin of Philippine political realities, was a journalist who became an
activist owing to a responsibility to the truth he was reporting. He had
been arrested three times. The first was in 1976 when militants were
usually abducted and made to disappear under martial rule. Second was in
the post-Marcos “liberal democratic” but actually low intensity
conflict-total war Aquino regime. As of this writing, he was released on
bail and is fighting to win the trumped-up charge of masterminding the
killing of suspected government spies in the communist movement he is
accused of having been leading.
Kenney, of course, is
the pretty face of U.S. business in the neocolony. The more aggressive
photo opportunities, the more hectic is direct intervention in our
country’s sovereign affairs. Kenney is in the here, there and everywhere
of military exercises, disaster relief operations, medical mission,
education programs, and recently, extrajudicial killings. Our business is
her business, and the photos of humanitarian work all over the country are
not a mask of the brutal realities implicating U.S. imperialism but a
necessary face of it.
Magsaysay Sr. is a
politician packaged to win social acceptance. The resurgence of the
Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan in the early 1950s forced the U.S.-directed
government to focus on the importance of public relations work in
counterinsurgency campaign. Thus, the former defense secretary and protégé
of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Edward Lansdale was
pictured to be seen-and documented to be immortalized-as the leader who
always talked with the common tao, participated in livelihood
projects, opened government offices to the poor, and fired erring
officials. Murderous rampage was coupled with humanizing the image.
Who will win the
hearts and minds of the people?
One narrative
structure
Interestingly, the
three photos triangulate the desire discussed by Mitchell as the central
question of images: from What do pictures mean? to What do
pictures want? Crucially in his discussion, there is a shift from
power (doing) to desire (wanting). While it is far from certain whether
such a proposal to “scale down the rhetoric of the ‘power of images’”
possesses a strategic benefit, it will be beneficial for us to analyze
“what it is they lack, what they do not possess, what cannot be
attributed to them.” For more than presenting an ocular inspection of the
forces and interests that contend over the nation, the three front-page
photos of the Inquirer symptomatize the state of emergency the country has
been under as a rule for the longest time. The basic point is that the
mass media of newspapers and Internet publication function here as a mode
that produces perception of the current coordinates of social power. In
particular, it actively engages in the production of meanings by
compelling our sense of sight to attend to its own theory of Philippine
politics.
It is important to
note that Magsaysay Jr. expressed his belief that “those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” His article lists the son’s
credentials as a continuity of the father’s achievements. He avowed that
remembering and not repeating the mistakes of the past “is the true
roadmap for the leader who wants to regain the people’s confidence in
their government.” Memory is accordingly the basic element to understand
the past. In the language of the national democratic movement, this same
bureaucrat capitalist tries to repair the damage wrought by rioting
factions of the controlling elite, vying for American support while waging
a total war against the people.
Because here we are
again, at a time when successive governments are on the brink of being
toppled, the ruling class is sounded a reform. That whenever they cannot
remodel themselves, the people’s progressive movement is sure to win the
people’s hearts and minds. Our photo of the U.S. ambassador playing chess
with a Filipino, figuring out the right moves that will “checkmate” the
native, testifies to the continuing intervention, projected as a kind of
play, of an imperialist superpower in our country’s affairs. She then
provides the interplay between two antagonistic forces in Philippine
politics, one progressive and revolutionary and another trapo and
counterrevolutionary, on who will acquire the legitimacy to govern this
country. To their minds, there should be no alternative to the present
system but a reform that will perpetuate the old.
Lastly, the
contrasting positions of Magsaysay and Ocampo visualize the class struggle
of a chronic crisis that is Philippine society. Magsaysay is leaping to
greatness (like a leap for Filipino humankind) as though to conquer the
force that is Ocampo, being arrested by police forces from the judiciary
hall of the Supreme Court to the executive office of the Western Police
District. This seize of Ocampo parallels the state of siege by which the
oppressive ruling order manages to block the emergence of an alternative
order out to end the people’s suffering. In a sense, this seizure
characteristic of a nervous system nearing its breakdown exhibits the
seizure of political power undertaken by democratic forces long denied
their picture of reality.
The resolution of
this picture, as one of the many climax points in the narrative of civil
(people’s) war, depends on the realization of the desires of the toiling
Filipino masses for sovereignty, freedom, justice, and democracy.
The photo that will
personify such desire is still being shot. Contributed to Bulatlat
Reference
Mitchell, W.J.T. What Do Pictures
Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 2005. 28-56.
Editor’s Note:
JPaul Manzanilla is research and education head of the Amado V. Hernandez
Resource Center (AVHRC). He served as University of the Philippines (UP)
Center for Nationalist Studies chair, Student Alliance for the Advancement
of Democratic Rights in UP (Stand UP) spokesperson, and Katipunan ng mga
Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP secretary-general at various times. He now
teaches at the Department of Arts and Communications of UP Manila.
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2007 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.