Lilia QUINDOZA SANTIAGO

1999/04

Philippines

Art of living
Peace strategy
Patriarchy

17. Art and culture as peacebuilders

By transforming individual behaviors, unhindered art and culture form an essential dimension
for building a just and sustainable peace. Similarly, the participation of women in public life
contributes new ways of doing things in a political world regulated at best by the male value
system, and at worst by military methods, as in the Philippines.

In 1972, when the Philippines was placed under martial law by Ferdinand Marcos, I was one of the
student activists rounded up, arrested, placed in detention centers and tortured by the military. Now,
nearly thirty years after that personal encounter with violence, I thought I should not only tell my story
but help reflect on how to exorcise the memory of torture, attain inner peace and move on to become
an advocate of peace for others.

In the Philippines, there are a thousand other stories like mine. Some ten thousand victims of human
rights atrocities during the Marcos regime have come out with ten thousand stories of torture and
violence in prison. Claimants in the Philippine Human Rights Litigation case against the Marcoses
have won initial victory in a court in the United States of America. I am one of these claimants who
helped document cases for litigation. This victory, our victory, is definitely a step toward meaningful
peace--peace that is based on justice. Not being a lawyer however, I cannot deal with legalities--these
are for the courts to hear and decide with legal instruments.

There are other interesting ways of building peace. In the twenty years of the Marcos dictatorship in
the Philippines, there were many forces that claimed to promote peace. Even Marcos himself claimed
it was because of the need for peace that he had to impose martial law in 1972. When he was
deposed in 1986, those who deposed him declared to the whole world that that was the first time
people ousted a military dictator without bloodshed. Even as there was a show of arms, there was no
direct and bloody confrontation. Thus, it was a "peaceful" people-powered revolution.

But is the absence of armed confrontation the essence of peace?

A year after that people power revolution, Philippine society under President Cory Aquino was wracked
by armed conflicts. There were the attempts at seizing state power through coup d’etat by the Reform
the Armed Forces Movement (RAM). The National Democratic Front (NDF), the Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) continued the armed struggle. The Moro
National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Muslim Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) went on with the
armed separatist movement in the South. The peace initiatives and the peace processes that were
pursued were not totally successful. To this day, the Philippine government has to contend with various
groups contesting its sovereignty.
There has been no real cessation of hostilities between government and political forces challenging
the power of the state. The peaceful dismantling of military rule in 1986 therefore did not solve the
basic problems which give rise to social unrest and violence in Philippine society.

So, what are the foundations of genuine peace and what are the basic processes that should make it
real and lasting for Filipinos?

To answer this question, I will draw from my experience and involvement in the historical fight against
the Marcos dictatorship. However, I will deal only with particular areas where I have enough
knowledge of and this is in the arena of culture and cultural work. In doing this, I hope to be able to
suggest modes of action which can help build peace in situations where there is continuing conflict,
armed or unarmed, among forces with opposing political platform and agenda.

Art Toward Inner Peace

One of the most powerful weapons that enable people to build peace is the imagination. It is the
imagination that creatively charts a new way of doing things, a new order.

In the most solitary confines of detention when I had only the wall and the self to talk with, I fought
desolation by keeping my mind at work. I imagined and wrote several stories to and of myself. I was
re-inventing myself and began to discover there were other selves other than the one that was with
me. Those other selves were not as bitter and resentful, even as they were rebellious and free. Those
other selves I imagined were better persons because they were not as shackled and restricted and
repressed as I was.

The imagination and desire to be free led me to write poetry. Part of the process to poetry however
was rather serendipitous. To pass away time in our detention cell, some political prisoners bonded
together to make greeting cards. This became a popular handicraft activity of political detainees. With
the initiative of some nuns who provided us with the basic paper material, watercolor and crayon,, we
collected leaves, tiny flowers , wild grass that grew on the grounds of the detention camp. We dried
these and used them as ornaments on the surface of greeting cards. My favorite part in the making of
the card was the writing of the dedication. Because the lines needed to be brief and concise to fit the
first page, words must be most appropriate. There was necessity to convey messages through
metaphor and symbols. Making the dedication almost perfect was a tough challenge. This kept my
mind busy grappling for the right word, the perfect dedication. This was when I began to discover the
power of the written word.

The greeting card we made grew into a business, a cooperative. Later, many political detainees would
use the card to convey messages about steadfastness in the face of adversity. Others used the cards
to start a dialogue with the military.

For me, drawing images through poetic lines and then later, telling stories of life’s other possibilities
was an avenue toward liberation. It helped me survive the year in the detention camp and the wider
prison of a society under martial law.

For even as I had decided to go back to the University to study and teach after detention, I was closely
being watched. There was censorship, and curfew and codes of conduct to follow. There was
systematic thought control through media and various state apparatuses. There was a general feeling
of fear because spies and informers were all over the place. In these situations, the only field that
provided enough room for maneuver was the act of writing, of honing the craft in literature, poetry in
particular.

Poetry released pent-up emotions. It also provided the tools for circumvention of repressive rules and
acted as buffer against censorship. Writing became an outlet for rage, an instrument for compassion
and a calmer of the spirit. The poems I wrote after the death of a friend in an encounter with the
military, or the elegy for a fallen leader of the Cordilleras, helped me get hold of myself. There was
inner peace in knowing that my convictions were intact and were not clobbered by fear.
It is this inner peace and strength that enabled me to simultaneously teach in the University, raise a
family and make the connection with people who matter in the movement for freedom and democracy.
Of course, not all prisoners can become poets. Not all persons who encounter violence turn to art and
literature to give vent to their rage. The key however to the attainment of inner peace is really poetic.
Here it must be underscored that the process is more important than the result. The use of the
imagination is more significant than the output which is the poetry.

Sisterhood for A Cause

In 1981, Marcos declared martial law to be over and, to prove this, he offered to hold elections. He
himself ran and won in that election and again succeeded in making a travesty of the electoral
process. He declared that a " New Republic - a fifth Republic" was in place. The mock election and the
bravado at declaring a "new republic" was exposed in the opinion columns of some women writers.
These women writers wrote for prominent newspapers, in particular, the Manila Daily Bulletin. For
taunting the regime and exposing the unrelenting bravado of the dictator, these women writers were
not only fired from their jobs, they were also investigated by the military for treason and subversion.

The collective trauma experienced by these women writers led us to the founding of WOMEN, which
meant Women Writers in Media Now. I was one of the women who founded this group. We did it as a
form of bonding with fellow women writers who were under siege from the military.

Collectively we explained how writing newspaper columns in the exercise of freedom of the press
could not be considered treason. On the side however, we had to answer questions as to why there
was a need for a separate organization of women writers. Why segregate the women from the men in
the profession of writing when they should work together for a common cause?

The answer to this question was not clearly articulated by us in the discourse. However, as our
activities became more interesting, we discovered it was not possible to disregard questions of gender
and its role in social formation. As women, we realized we were bonding not only to collectively claim
the freedom of expression for ourselves but also to expose the patriarchy that was the main structure
of power of the dictatorship. The military that was running the country was composed mainly of men in
uniform. And we were women, an underclass in an all-male military set-up. Perhaps as women, we
were bringing to the fore the possibility of a totally different political dispensation. We were in search of
a more compassionate political regime and we thought this was possible only with more gender-
sensitive individuals in positions of power.

We conducted workshops on the basic tenets of writing and combined considerations of craft as well
as political correctness of content. We critiqued each other’s work when we ventured into investigative
journalism. Our writings probed the deeper problems of the larger society: corruption in government,
waylaid priorities in development programs, the causes of the continuing armed insurgency in both the
Communist revolution and the Muslim separatist movement. We did features on human rights
violations, militarization, hamletting, demolition of squatters and many other social issues. There were
exposes on the linkages of politicians to illegal logging, gambling and other atrocious activities. All of
these writings are collected in two volumes of the anthology entitled, Filipina 1 and 2 (1984).

Gender Peace Pacts in the Name of Free Expression

In 1983, with the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, the political crisis intensified and our
organization had to reach out to the larger community of cultural workers. Even as the group was
instrumental in the founding of the feminist association, GABRIELA (General Assembly Binding
Women for Integrity, Equality, Leadership and Action), there were other needs specific to the artists
and writers of the time that needed to be addressed.

We helped form the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) in order to squarely address the issue
of censorship in film and in the other arts. Members of the association included distinguished directors
in the film industry like the late Lino Brocka, social realist painters, and socially committed writers. The
immediate target of the association was the Censors Board appointed by Marcos which was
responsible for cutting portions of films, rating these on the bias of pornography or banning entire films
for their political implications and commentary on Philippine society.

With the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), we discovered that freedom of expression is a
primary issue without which all other efforts at promoting progress and development in the Philippines
were meaningless. Freedom of expression and a free press were requisites to an open and free
society. And only an open and free society can build peace and progress for its people.

Overall then, my personal narrative suggests three modes of action for building peace. First, inner
peace for all individual advocates of peace. This inner peace must be worked at and solidly built on
commitment and conviction. I believe only persons who have experienced this kind of inner peace can
promote and appreciate the need for a genuine, just and lasting peace. Two, freedom and
empowerment for the women. I think, women, more than men, have the power and capacity to chart
new courses of action especially in political dispensations ruled mainly by men. Three, freedom of
expression for all regardless of class, gender, ethnic affinity and political persuasion.

Source: Original text, contribution to the preparatory workshop in Amsterdam.