Schedule
Nov. 28, 2024 | 1:00 PM–2:30 PM
Room
Rm 4, Jade-Onyx
Moderator
Ariel Lopez
University of the Philippines Diliman
E4.1
Remembering Marawi: The Politics of Marawi’s Post-Conflict Memorialization
John Lee P. Candelaria
Hiroshima University
Nearly a decade has passed since the conclusion of the Marawi Siege, a five-month urban armed conflict between ISIS-affiliated militants and the Philippine government, which resulted in extensive destruction and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents. The aftermath saw significant human and infrastructural losses, yet the Marawi Rehabilitation project has been criticized for its slow progress and unmet promises. In this study, I critically examined the post-conflict memorialization of the Marawi Siege through two national sites of memory: the Marawi Peace Memorial Park within the rehabilitated zone of Marawi in Lanao del Sur, and the Marawi Heroes Memorial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) in Metro Manila. My analysis of the production context and visual semiotic resources of these memorials revealed a predominant emphasis on the heroism and sacrifices of military and police personnel, effectively diminishing the social impact of the conflict while affected civilians still languish in what were supposed to be temporary shelters. I argued that the national memorialization of Marawi exposes the limitations of the Philippine government’s practices in capturing the transitional justice potential inherent in post-conflict remembrance. By privileging the political and military aspects of the siege, these memorials fail to address the broader spectrum of suffering and resilience experienced by the civilian population. This selective memory construction reflects a broader pattern of utilizing memory for state purposes, potentially undermining reconciliation processes and inclusive memorialization that are essential for healing and peace.
E4.2
Eulogies are for the Dead: The (re)Haunting of Marlon Fuente’s Bontoc Eulogy from an Igorot American Perspective
Joseph Allen Ruanto-Ramirez
Southwestern College
The 1996 work of Marlon Fuentes,’ the “mockumentary” Bontoc Eulogy has become a monumental film in Filipino/x American cinematography and has been studied in various ways from a media studies perspective. The thesis of this paper is not about the film of Fuentes, directly, but how Fuentes is haunted by his own imagined past and how these “hauntings” haunt Filipino/x Americans and their aspiration for a “decolonial and indigenous” self, while simultaneously, suspending Igorot and Igorotness into an imagined, stagnant space and time. The questions I raised are the following: how does Bontoc Eulogy haunt Filipino/x Americans? And why does Fuentes’ work continue to be a central discourse in Filipino/x American Studies? This project looked at the various auditory, visual, and imaginary hauntings that are both absent and present in the Fuentes’ work. Describing the sounds that are both heard and are silent in the film, to how Fuentes’ incorporates both historical footages of the Philippine-American War and his own life, especially how he incorporates his children in the project, will address the spectral relationship(s) Fuentes has with the ghosts of his (imagined) past and how the ghost stories that he narrated in his film became the foundation of how Bontoc Eulogy haunts Filipino/x Americans, especially after the wake of the Babaylan Movement in 2008. More importantly, this paper also critiqued both Fuentes’ work and Filipino/x American “indigenization” movements from an indigenous perspective, especially from an Igorot American lens, and the creation of an “indigenous mythology” in diaspora that erases the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Philippines. Are Igorots, as well as other indigenous people and cultural communities, perpetually suspended in an imagined space and time both in the Philippines and in diaspora? What does it mean for an Igorot (American) to “haunt back” Filipino/x American imagined aspirations?
E4.3
The EDSA Euphoria in Children’s Books on the Marcos Dictatorship
Mary Grace R. Concepcion
University of the Philippines Diliman
The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution is a historic event that would topple the Marcos dictatorship through a peaceful and non-violent uprising. Mobilized by the Catholic Church, it was considered a “miraculous event” where even non-partisan individuals from the middle class rallied to call for the end of the Marcos dictatorship. However, there needs a critical assessment of this celebratory narrative: did the political and economic problems continue post-EDSA 1986? How does the euphoria of EDSA 1986 affect the way one views Martial Law, and the stories one tell the succeeding generations? Children’s books depicting this period are valuable since they are vessels of remembering, especially to a generation with no memories of this period. This paper analyzes how the celebratory narrative of EDSA 1986 frames the plot and resolution in three children’s books on Martial Law, namely EDSA (2013) by Russel Molina, Isang Harding Papel (2014) and Si Jhun-Jhun, Noong Bago Ideklara ang Batas Militar (2001) by Augie Rivera. Using narratology, I examine how the celebratory narrative of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution has resolved all the problems that the child characters encounter such as poverty, incarceration and human rights violations. The paratexts such as the foreword and historical note also depict the problems of Martial Law as ending alongside the downfall of the dictatorship. By careful interrogation of these children’s books, one looks at how the texts confront or evade the structural defects affecting society.
E4.4
Balikbayan as Re/Membering: Becoming Filipino in a Foreign Memory Environment
Kad C. Mariano
York University
Despite often being perceived as passive objects of memory ostensibly alienated from national memory practices, diasporas challenge the boundaries of citizenship by engaging with how national identity and its rooted past are configured, performed, and remembered. Diasporas, therefore, offer a unique lens for understanding memory dynamics in the Philippines and their new home states. They demonstrate interconnected social fields that link diverse communities despite the existence of seemingly solid political borders. This paper asks: What does it mean to become Filipino in a foreign memory environment? Drawing on interviews and content analysis of cross-cultural events organized by Filipino organizations in Canada, this paper theoretically conceptualized the notion of balikbayan (return to the homeland/country/people/nation) as a type of re/membering or a process denoting how collectivities adapt their received affiliations, loyalties, and sensitivities to their current transnational situations through acts of remembering. In the context of Filipino diasporas, they deploy multilayered practices, including commemorating, storytelling, and overwriting, to reconstitute their national membership as Filipinos in order to reflect their experiences of prolonged (labor) migration and intercultural encounters. Regardless of the spatial and temporal distance, diasporic Filipinos continue to participate in the national practices of becoming Filipino, with the inclusion of a collective past rooted in global displacement, dispossession, and separation. What can this concept of balikbayan entail for an increasingly globalized nation like the Philippines? What questions about the complicated and contextual positionality of diasporas remain unasked in current conceptions of nationalism and memory?