Breaking the Glass Air

There is no salvation in the saying of words –
But what weapon do we use
against that which oppresses & chokes?
Silence overwhelms
but we must keep on inventing the word
that will smash
the thick glass of air between us.
Edel Garcellano, “Words

There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.
Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control

I. Asog Incident

This post aims to be a follow-up to the last one that I did. Still taps into the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival but is different in scope. 

I think by this paragraph, the regular reader might have an idea what this post is going to be about: yes, this comes in light of what is by now a widely known incident, the Ayala Malls’ censorship of the film Asog. As narrated by the witnesses, the actions of the Mall leading to the screening date of Asog are outright suspicious: there are no screening schedules on the online ticketing system for them to reserve their tickets on, which led them to rethink if the film is going to push through. On the day of the screening, August 9, 2024, a disclaimer notice was placed in front of the cinema venue instead of the movie’s poster. No tickets are sold during the day, citing that the screening is already “sold out” despite only around 30 people being present in a theater for 200~.

The film’s official Instagram page responded with some information to understand the dynamic between the film and Ayala the entity. Asog covers the struggle of the residents of Sicogon Island who are under constant threat of displacement ever since the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda. The displacements are caused by a land development project on the island by Sicogon Development Corp. (SIDECO) and Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI), which aims to build a resort in the areas devastated by the typhoon. Asog started its production in 2019 featuring some of the 784 families who refuse to vacate their homes. The production gets involved with the negotiations between the families and the developers. SIDECO and ALI signed an agreement to all the residents’ demands which include 33 hectares of agricultural land, 32 million pesos of livelihood relief, and funding for the construction of the homes where the residents will be relocated. The official page adds that at the time when the production wrapped up, the developers had already paid for the construction of the homes. 2 of the three main demands are still not honored.

Considering the context above, it seems relatively positive enough that one of the demands is fulfilled after all. So why did Ayala the entity put up so much fuss over a film that, in light of recent development, does not entirely make them look bad? The answer seems to lie in one of the two other demands that are still hanging: the issuing of land titles to the residents. Let us recall another incident involving Ayala Land and displacement.

I have been noting for the past several years the violent displacements that Ayala Land has done in the metro, particularly, in Quezon City’s north triangle, to give way for the constructions of Vertis North and Solaire North. Incidentally, too, since 2017, displacements of residents of Barangay Bagong Pag-Asa from different sitios and areas, particularly in Sitio San Roque, seem to coincide with the mounting of QCinema International Film Festival where screenings take place in either Trinoma mall or Vertis North. It is important to recognize here that both the festival and the displacements are done in cooperation with the Local Government of Quezon City and Ayala.

Given this history, it is not hard to see why the Sicogon resort developers, SIDECO and ALI, want to delay the distribution of lands: because they are not in the business of giving out lands. 

The gross imbalance of land ownership is the root of class struggle in this country. Land ownership dictates where the riches will flow to, and distributing land will also distribute wealth and production of capital. The ruling classes will never agree to that. 

The narratives of the people of Sitio San Roque will tell you how much of the displacements are done underhandedly and oftentimes with the help of the local police or some criminal entities (which may be one and the same). This briefly brings us back to the nature of parapolitics in this country as supplementary to the semifeudal character of its ruling classes: where criminality and extrajudicial violence supplement the protection of private property. In this case, there’s not much difference between what transpired between the canceled screening of Lost Sabungeros and what happened with Asog, as they are tainted already with the terrorism that the ruling classes enact on the rest of the population.

Ayala Land does not even make an effort to hide this violence. Their prompt response with the disclaimer does not help them look like the good guys. Being in “regular contact” with the Sicogon community, if you put it in the context of the incident, make it seem that they are regularly keeping them in check. The houses are already built but the developers do not seem keen to release the deeds to the family, as though they are keeping the lands hostage. This is not surprising, considering the extent of violence that Ayala Land can do to the residents of the metro just to build a redundant mall and a casino in Quezon City, you just have to think what else can they do to the residents of a remote island. 

II. Institutions, Apparati, and the Task of Demystification

At this point, I would like to clarify some points I have raised in “On Cinema and Parapolitics” considering the nature of institutions and their relationship with the ruling classes. 

Institutions, like Cinemalaya, by virtue of its seemingly frictionless coexistence with the dominant social order, serve that very order to its fullest extent. “Independence” in their name is just branding – like how “independent films” / “indie” are, contemporarily, genres instead of a condition of existence. Which is to say, the “independent” in their name just note what kinds of films it caters to its audience – by kinds of films, we mean here certain conventions, boxes, and standards and not a freewheeling, free-for-all, carefree kind of independence. It’s enough for us to recognize how it is still controversial that the filmmakers do not hold full ownership of their work under the Cinemalaya grant.

This setup fits right well with the contemporary social conditions that favor the institutions and the ruling classes that they serve in a feedback loop. For as long as they are not rattling the cages, they are of no issue to brandish “independence” on whatever meaning they want to give. Often, this branding clings and results in a certain mystification that Cinemalaya indeed represents “independent cinema.” This branding of independence helps the ruling classes too, as what happened with Ayala Malls’ partnership with Cinemalaya and QCinema, making them seem like a patron of such “independent films.”

This branding is nothing more than a brand, as the practices are different as Cinemalaya’s history shows. There were editions when the film festival declined films it initially selected because the filmmakers did not abide by their demands to cast mainstream actors (as with the case of Shieka (2010) and MNL143 (2012)). There were even years when that was an issue about who should make the subtitles for the competing films. In 2023, Cinemalaya refused to screen Lav Diaz’ A Tale of Filipino Violence – an allegory of fascism adapted from a short story written by Ricky Lee. The festival defends its decision towards Diaz’s movie as a technical matter (too long to be the opening film), while speculations on not wanting to offend the administration have been going around since (the film, despite being produced by ABS CBN’s iWanTFC platform, still has not been released locally on any manner, adding to the flame of that speculation).

Considering the incidents laid out above, it is not hard to see how much of the term “independent” was only used loosely. Like most institutions under semifeudal and semicolonial conditions, adapting the bureaucratic in bureaucratic capitalism, institutions prioritize their own bureaucratic line over any kind of idealism, resulting in more control.

This control, in a sense, would extend to epistemic aspects which brings us to the seemingly deliberate holding back of information in the incidents concerning Diaz’ A Tale of Filipino Violence, Lost Sabungeros, and Asog. Especially in the case of Lost Sabungeros where it is indeed complicated even on the surface, institution stalwarts would warn you of how “complicated” this is and how much what’s happening concerning the “powers that be” is beyond what we know. These stalwarts would stop there and otherwise would ask you to be with them in their defeatism.

But this is a strategy that only benefits those “powers that be.” What these stalwarts want you to do is to be with them and commit the same injustice and violence that those in power commit to their victims. What it does is mystify the ruling classes, as if their “power” makes them move any more differently than your average criminal. But what really does this power bring them that we can’t feel from their committment to everyday violence?

Bringing them into the pedestal, institutions’ stalwarts cower in fear at the sight of the bourgeoisie and the landlords, as though witnessing gods and their otherworldly logic. These stalwarts reside within institutions of education, culture, and in places where the shaping of minds happen to reproduce this same fear among their subjects, students, and peers. They seem to have all the answers, but would never give you one because they do not really know. They bring in the bad news, that you will never know the truth. It is apt to call them state apparatuses because they are machines of the social order. 

If this is what these stalwarts help the social order for the benefit of the ruling classes that only replicate and multiply through their silence and acts of unknowing the violence and terrorism of the already powerful, then the task of militancy becomes necessary. The branding of independence, which has been bullshit for as long as it is mere branding, in the so-called “independent cinema” has long held back this task. This year has peaked where the ruling classes have masked off their violence, revealing themselves as the terrorists that they are. It is not too late for anyone who considers themselves a film critic to align with Adrian Mendizabal’s idealism of transforming their criticism into militancy by committing to the truth of the proletariats. To not align with the subjectivity of the bourgeoisie and isolate their film writings to mere questions of form, content, message, and their comfort in the theaters. The big film festivals in this country, the big film studios, historically, align with the ruling classes whose violence and terrorism result in what our cinema today feeds on the crumbs of imperialists, at the mercy of neoliberal film grants, and at the packaging of public relations. Your discontent with whatever bad movie is tied to this bigger violence in front of you that you have long been ignoring because “it’s just cinema.”

You, film critic, of the working class and petitbourgeois upbringing, must learn from history: Cinema and state violence are intertwined in this country. You, film critic, also suffer from the unjust wage system, everyday hostile commuting and urban planning, and malprivilege that are tied to the landlessness, homelessness, and the militaristic and paramilitaristic hostilities experienced by the vast majority of our peasant and Indigenous fellow citizens. I’ve talked about having guns in my former post, which you may take in jest or literally, but figuratively, it is time for you to get a new weapon of criticism: write towards the demystification of these film institutions. Expose them as they are in their historical beings. Imagine a world without them and write the agenda for a truly independent cinema beyond the apparatus!

Coda: Drop the endearment

At the time of this writing, an owner of a meme page named Ileiad seems to be facing a cyberlibel lawsuit filed by the actor Mon Confiado over a joke copypasta the said page posted some days ago that went viral. While done in distaste and cringe, the said copypasta seems to exude also a certain kind of endearment for the actor – otherwise, he wouldn’t have deserved such honor of being copypasta’d. Under the defense of “protecting his livelihood”, the notoriously tyrannical cybercrime law is being used again not even to silence critics, but even fans who are merely joking around. 

This lawsuit which is said for the jester to “learn a lesson” and protect one’s livelihood will end up also hurting a potential livelihood for the young one who does not know better. This brings the case to a critical point, where finally, a full circle of the cybercrime law tyranny will now reach even the most banal and most unthought-of remarks, and that’s even harsher than whatever censorship laws the Martial Law of the 70s has brought us. 

But on the other end, this also brings to light the effect of the fetishism of film culture where clearly, Ileiad’s copypasta resides. This is a product of a kind of a certain film culture whose practice of criticism and film writing resides on fleeting fascinations of aesthetics and performances, ratings, rankings, and feelings inconsiderate of historical realities. This, again, does not shield anyone from the violence that the institutions of cinema are willing to enact on you if they feel like they don’t like you.

The militant task is to bring down cinema to the ground of history and be traced from there. The present is not friendly even with the most emotional and the most humorous. How you feel about a film or a personality does not matter anymore in the face of ruling class and bourgeois terrorism. Make us think. Give us bullets. Mark our enemies. 

Aim.

Fire.

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