Kinsa Pa Man Diay?: Neoliberalism and Anti-Politics at Work in Three Cebuano Songs Released during Community Quarantine
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I. Neoliberalism and Anti-Politics
One
of the more famous quotes attributed to British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher, stated during an interview she gave with Woman’s Own magazine in 1987, goes like this: “There is no such
thing [as society]! There are individual men and women and there are families
and no government can do anything except through people and people look to
themselves first” (Keay, 1987). Earlier in the decade, and barely two years
after she ascended to the aforementioned office in May 1979, a newly elected
world leader across the pond uttered words of a similar tenor during his
inaugural address on January 20th, 1981. President Ronald Reagan’s words would
go on to become a credo of sorts among fiscally conservative circles for
decades to come: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is
the problem” (Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, 1981). Said
statements roughly coincided with the opening-up of China’s economy under Deng
Xiaoping (“socialism with Chinese characteristics,” the paramount leader
famously dubbed this transition) and precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991.
These
developments—besides heralding a so-called “end of history,” according to
political scientist Francis Fukuyama (1989), defined by the “unabashed victory
of economic and political liberalism”—may seem rather distant, both
geographically and temporally, even innocuous, from the perspective of a
twenty-first-century Cebuano, but they have much bearing on the way we think and
behave today. Scholars such as David Harvey (2005) point to the early years of
the Thatcher and Reagan administrations as the first wave of neoliberalism, a
specific type of capitalism that essentially eroded the dominance of post–World
War II Keynesian economics. This diminishing of government’s role in the lives
of ordinary citizens, if not the alteration of its raison d’être to suit the
needs of capital, was founded on theories first articulated by noted economists
like Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, and the Chicago School of Economics,
and soon translated into a number of policies that included the lowering of
tariffs to encourage free trade, the reduction of corporate taxes couched in
the idea that wealth generated from above would eventually “trickle down,” and
the introduction of austerity measures that went hand in hand with the
privatization of state services.
In
the case of the Philippines, which didn’t have quite the robust welfare
infrastructure that the more industrialized West did, the fall of the Marcos
dictatorship at around this time left the ground ripe for the entrenchment of
neoliberal policies. Walden Bello (2009) cites three factors that led to this
“triumph by default”: (1) intellectuals and technocrats consulted by the Aquino
administration were greatly influenced by Reaganist and Thatcherite free-market
experiments already underway in the United States and the United Kingdom; (2)
the not-entirely-erroneous pinning of economic troubles on Marcos’s crony
capitalism, through which he bequeathed state agencies to associates in the
private sector; and (3) the compromising of Keynesian developmentalism, with
its heavy emphasis on state intervention in market processes, by its
“personification” in the Marcos dictatorship.
As
Arnisson Andre Ortega (2018) writes, by attributing and blaming economic
stagnation and all other woes—which included “corruption, strong state control,
and authoritarianism”—on Marcos, the Aquino administration was able to
effectively rationalize the institution of neoliberal reforms and justify “the
rise of a regime of truth conflating democracy and freedom with free-market
capitalism and global competitiveness.”
So
how exactly do these macro-scale policies manifest at the individual level? For
one, Ortega has observed a “cultural shift” in the Philippine milieu that
valorizes values such as entrepreneurialism and competitiveness. Such
valorization is “contingently an othering process, one that vilifies the
unwarranted and expendable bodies of surplus populations.” In other words,
there is a tendency among many in the privileged middle and upper classes to
make blanket political, economic, and even psychological statements with regard
to complex issues like poverty alleviation and even, as we’ve seen in the past
year, pandemic protocols. Pronouncements that state to the effect the
importance of “working hard” (most characteristically exemplified by the
“pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps” mentality) and “staying home”
without taking into consideration multiple variables and the difficult
realities of the aforementioned surplus populations are proof of this.1
Any appeals to unity from these upper classes, then, however well-intentioned,
will ultimately prove exclusionary when hemmed within the framework of
neoliberalism.
Corollary
to neoliberal thought, and a good part of why bourgeois individualism has
proven so successfully pervasive in the “post-consensus” era, is what Noam
Chomsky (2012) refers to as anti-politics. In its pinning of blame for societal
failures solely on government—and not, say, corporate influence, which is often
less visible—anti-politics champions hyperindividualistic values, chief of
these being the notion that the individual is exempt from or not affected by
social realities. Participation in political processes is thus immaterial, and
the individual deems him/herself the master of their own destiny.
Capitalist-underpinned constructs of “success,” which tend to preoccupy the
thoughts of anti-political individuals, are thus believed to be achievable by
sheer grit and hard work, irrespective of the circumstances one is born into.
The normalization of anti-politics is well in evidence in casual statements by
friends or personalities who opt “not to get political,” whether in everyday
conversations or on their social media profiles, or when we hear acquaintances
justify, though not wholly inaccurately, their deliberate decision not to vote
with the “all politicians are the same anyway” argument.
While
playing to our egos and convenience,2 hyperindividualist
anti-politics simultaneously works to the benefit of corporate interests and
their enablers in a government that presides over what Harvey refers to as “the
neoliberal state.” By playing up “the self” in relation to one’s society, private
corporations and authoritarian regimes have hindered many from looking past
their individual privileges, or dissuaded mass organizations in
general—effectively “atomizing” society while powerful sectors further
consolidate their dominance.
Chomsky’s
discussions are made mainly within the context of the United States, but it
should come as no surprise—given that country’s penchant for exporting
depoliticized thought and individual exceptionalism—to see an aversion to
politics, and a consequent susceptibility to right-wing rhetoric, manifest in
the Philippines in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit with a distinctly
Filipino air. Whereas a potent “Don’t Tread on Me” ethos in America’s culture
has translated into staunch resistance against mask-wearing, here in the
Philippines, and especially in Cebu, the skyrocketing case counts were
attributed by many officials and Duterte supporters to a perceived lack of
discipline on the part of individual citizens who, for example, refused to stay
home or wear their face masks or shields properly. Hence, when President
Rodrigo Duterte, in a June 22 press conference, called out Cebuanos for being “gahi’g ulo” (hard-headed), essentially
blaming the public and not slow, inept government measures and misplaced
priorities for furthering the virus’s spread, a number of Cebuanos—no doubt
supporters of his but also unknowingly indoctrinated by a minimalist government
mind-set3—still very much agreed with him.
II. The COVID-19 Pandemic in Cebu
Ask
any Cebuano who regularly listens to the radio what they know of Asian College
of Technology or Mandani Bay, and they’ll likely tell you how the former
institute “creates the future today” while the latter residential development
can, for some unarticulated reason, assist one in “[following their] heart,
[following their] dreams, and [living their] passion every day.” The
pervasiveness of these radio ads in our airwaves and, say, campaign jingles
bursting from loudspeakers during election season to drill a candidate’s name
into the minds of prospective voters, speaks to the catchy vibe that words can
take on when paired with a musical melody. As Michael Ryan and Brett Ingram (2010)
put it, “There is purpose and design behind the music we hear in offices, in
stores, on commercials, and at social gatherings,” among other settings. In the
case of radio ads and campaign jingles, music doesn’t just serve the purpose of
promoting the establishment or the candidate involved, but also primarily
informing the listener of the subject’s existence.
This
need for information dissemination has become all the more crucial in the past
year, as the world descended into pandemic pandemonium, and government and
health officials scrambled to raise awareness among their respective
populations of the precautions they needed to take (hand-washing, social
distancing, refraining from touching one’s face being chief examples), as well
as dispel certain myths and conspiracy theories about the virus that were
making the rounds online. In Cebu, identified by the University of the
Philippines’s OCTA research group as the country’s “second major battleground”
in the fight against COVID-19 (qtd. in Macasero, 2020a), on account of the rising
cases from May to July 2020, officials sought to curb the spread by
implementing measures that mirrored those in other parts of the country: strict
border controls, curfews and liquor bans, the introduction of a quarantine pass
system, to name some of the more notable ones. Case numbers remained high for
several weeks, however, prompting President Duterte to not just revert the
status of the province from General Community Quarantine (GQC) to the more
stringent Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ), but also deploy
several police and military personnel from other provinces to enforce lockdown
measures, with retired general Roy Cimatu overseeing the pandemic response in
the provincial capital (Macasero, 2020b).
Perhaps
one of the more distinctly Cebuano means by which officials and organizations
sought to remind the public of the severity of the virus and the importance of
adhering to regulations was the uploading onto the internet of music videos
with pandemic-inspired lyrics. As the birthplace of the VisPop phenomenon and
the home of various musical artists, Cebu already had the infrastructure and
personnel in place to convey COVID-related information by way of music. Between
May and August 2020, I came across on social media three music videos tailored
for this purpose: “Wa’y ‘Blema (ECQ
Version)” (“No Problem”) by the Wonggoys, a lyrically modified version of their
2018 song of the same name; “Dungan” (“Together”),
sung by various artists and produced by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., in
collaboration with independent record label Kadasig; and “Kinsa Pa Man Diay?” (“Who Else but Us?”), performed also by
various artists and released by the Cebu Citizens Initiative.
Musical
artists mobilizing, or being called on to mobilize, in the wake or in the midst
of a crisis is nothing new. Oftentimes, their performative talents are employed
to raise funds, as in the case of benefit and charity concerts. More seldom,
although far from rarely, they are commissioned to pen lyrics specifically
inspired by the crisis at hand, as in the case of the three abovementioned
songs. Explicating lyrics, to quote Ryan and Ingram (2010) again, is “such a
strange endeavor” because it is often difficult to separate lyrics from the
context in which they are produced. Music, as with all other forms of art, has
a “mutually determined and determining” relationship with the political sphere;
both greatly influence each other, however disparate they may seem.
Thus,
if not examined critically, music—particularly lyrics—can have that
“reactionary purpose” of concealing from the members of the society in which it
is produced and created for, the true facts of their social condition (Witkin,
2003), perhaps not unlike how the brash pronouncements of a certain president
can go unquestioned by his most ardent fans. In contrast to deliberately
politically charged statements, however, music takes on an air of harmlessness
because it is crafted carefully, artfully, with the creative well aware of what
clicks with or appeals to an audience that has little to no time to formulate
their own in-depth analyses.
In
his essay “Musica Moralia,” Resil Mojares (2019) writes, paralleling Ryan and
Ingram’s assertions, that “music and politics cannot be dissociated.” In
concluding this write-up, the Cebuano scholar poses some thought-provoking
questions on the relationship between the art form and contemporaneous
sociopolitical events; these include “Is musical nationalism [or more broadly,
any musical piece that calls for a vague sense of solidarity] a self-evident
good even when it is produced under the patronage of an occupation government
and local dictatorship?” and “Does music create the private space in which one
can preserve one’s autonomy and keep one’s freedom, or does it nourish a
quietist acceptance of things as they are?”
Although
the three songs under analysis were admittedly well composed and produced, with
their respective music videos receiving their fair share of viewers and
reactors, my initial reaction upon listening to each was one of disappointment,
perhaps even frustration, for I could not help but notice how these lyrics
tended to omit key antecedents and other concurrent developments that led to
the pandemic’s reaching the grievous point that it did in our country and in my
home province. I thus listened to these songs repeatedly, transcribed their
lyrics, and highlighted certain lines that I felt parroted or operated within
the parameters set by the government’s rhetoric, and by extension propounded
values that a neoliberal, authoritarian state would find favorable. I also
consulted a couple of readings on music’s role in society, and how notions of individualism
and an avoidance of politics overlap, becoming especially entrenched over
recent decades. I then used these readings as a lens directed at these song
lyrics to articulate my points, with the hope of answering, in some capacity,
the queries posed by Mojares.
III. Explicating Lyrics
An
initial listen and cursory lyric read of both “Wa’y ‘Blema (ECQ Version),” which I shall hereon refer to as S1,
and “Dungan,” S2 moving forward, will
readily reveal the “information dissemination” function of both songs, in
particular by way of dispelling “the myths and misguided beliefs about the
virus” and “spread[ing] the word about proper anti-COVID practices,” to quote
from S1’s YouTube description (2020). This is because both S1 and S2 were
released just seven days apart in May of 2020, relatively early during
community quarantine, as the public had to hurriedly acclimate to the so-called
“new normal,” but at the same time encountered some difficulty distinguishing
truths from lies amid the information they received primarily from social
media.
S1’s
second stanza, for example, has a line that addresses misconceptions about the
demographics which the virus purportedly “only” affects: the wealthy—presumably
because COVID-19 at the time was typically associated with air travel, a luxury
available mainly to the country’s middle and upper classes and far removed from
the experiences of those residing in urban slums—and the elderly (“Idol, dili na tinuod nga sakit na sa dato
ug sa gor ra matakod” [Idol, it’s not true that this virus infects only the
wealthy, and that only old people can catch it4] [Wonggoys, 2020]).
There are also lines that address the rumor that the virus is comparable to a
regular flu (“Dili ra ni hilanat, dili
grabe nga ubo” [It’s not just a fever, nor a terrible cough]), as well as
pointing out that even if one does not feel symptoms, there is still the need
to maintain physical distancing (“Ug kon
wa pod kay gibati, need gihapon kang
magpalayo” [And if you’re not feeling anything, you still need to keep
distance]).
More
dispelling is seen in the stanza following the first chorus with regard to
rumored “treatments,” such as the ingesting of alcohol (“Kay ang alcohol sa beer di kapatay / Anang virus kon mosud sa imong lawas” [Because
alcohol from beer cannot kill the virus once it’s inside your body]), the
taking of vitamins (“Bisan pag mag vitamins”),
exposing oneself to sunlight (“Magpabuwad
pa sa init”), and even gargling salt (“Mogargle
pa ka og asin”).
A
dispelling of similar myths can be seen in the rapped portion of S2, with the
notable addition of warning listeners from buying into “false rumors” (“tuo-tuo”):
Sakit ra daw sa dato,
di sa pobre ilang ingon
[It’s an illness only of the rich, not
the poor, they say]
Di motakod kay sa
daghang kagaw na daw sila immune
[It’s not contagious because they’re
immune to many germs]
Nya okay na daw ka
basta mag-gargle lag asin
[And it’s okay if you just gargle salt,
they say]
Bisag magporgag vitamins, Corona walay vaccine
[Even if you ingest vitamins, Corona
has no vaccine]
Mabata o tiguwang, way
gipili ning sakita
[Young or old, this illness doesn’t
choose]
Nyag matakdan ka,
matakdan pod nimo imong pamilya
[And if you catch it, your family will
be infected too]
Mao nang ay’g pailad,
ay’g padas mga tuo-tuo
[So don’t be fooled, don’t believe the
false rumors]
Dako pag chance maayo sa COVID, kaysa pagka
uto-uto
[You’ll recover from COVID faster than
from all the foolery]
(Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., 2020)
Apart
from myth-busting, there is also the expected reminder of precautions in both
songs that citizens ought to practice. S1 starts with emphasizing the
“strictness” of quarantine, the importance of staying home, as well as
reminding listeners via backing vocals (in parentheses below) of the community
quarantine status of Cebu at the time of the song’s release:
Batok sa COVID, strikto
na ang quarantine
[In our fight against COVID, quarantine
is now strict]
Dili na pwede magsige
og gawas sa house
[We can’t just leave the house anytime
anymore]
(Aah! ECQ!)
It’s a beautiful life kung magpuyo lang sa ta
[It’s a beautiful life if we just stay
put]
(Aah! ECQ!)
This
modifying of lyrics to an already popular song boosts S1’s influential appeal.
By simply recalling the catchy melody, listeners need only to replace the
lyrics from the original track with this new set, and are hence readily
reminded of the myths and precautions for which this song was penned to address
and air, respectively.
In
S2, a similar reminding rhetoric can be seen concerning social distancing and
how this can be understood as an act of love (“Distansiya, higala / Kay distance is love”), as well as staying
home (“Pagpuyo nalang sa balay”) and
avoiding public gatherings (“Sa mga tapok
paglikay”) and other risky scenarios (“Magpalayo
ta sa mga panulay”). Expectedly, there is also the reminder to observe
precautions such as frequent hand-washing (“Paghunaw
og kamot”) and refraining from touching one’s face (“Ang nawong ay’g hikapa”). In contrast to S1, S2 must rely on the
repetition of key phrases as it is an entirely new song.
Beyond
these well-meaning statements, however, the messaging behind certain lines in
both lyrics, as well as the third song, “Kinsa
Pa Man Diay?” (S3), which was released in August and therefore tackles
different though not unrelated concerns, is suggestive of neoliberal, and
extensively, anti-political thinking. Such a supposition becomes even more
cogent when one takes into consideration certain much-publicized events that
preceded the songs’ releases, but which were undoubtedly concurrent with their
production.
As
early as March 2020, for example, when lockdown measures began to be enforced,
medical experts and various progressive groups were already calling for the
implementation of a mass testing program, in line with the World Health
Organization’s recommendations to “test, test, test” (Farge & Revill,
2020). Proof of this was the trending of the hashtag #MassTestingNowPH across
various social media platforms. Instead of following through, however, the
Philippine government—which was already months behind in its pandemic response,
given the lax attitude officials displayed in January and February—instated
draconian measures that included the sudden closing of borders between cities
and provinces, the deployment of police and military personnel to man checkpoints,
the mass arrests of dozens of supposed “quarantine violators,” mainly in poorer
neighborhoods, and most infamously, President Duterte’s orders to law enforcers
to “shoot…dead” anyone they saw as violating protocols (Tomacruz, 2020). Such a
response prompted both local critics and international observers to label the
Duterte government’s response as less medical and more militaristic (see report
by Reyes, 2020).
Obedience,
ostensibly with regard to observing quarantine regulations (however absurd or
inhumane a number of these were), was a buzz word thrown around by officials
and supporters of the administration. Anyone apprehended for an alleged
violation was immediately seen as “disobedient” without taking into account the
circumstances behind their arrest and detaining. Characteristic of the
neoliberal state, this labeling effectively shifted the blame of the virus’s
spread onto the individual, even though a number of these “violators” were
likely just out to procure supplies or unjustly detained by emboldened law
enforcement. At the same time, this also permitted the government to ascribe
the terms “reklamador” (complainant)
to critics and “pasaway” (disobedient,
rowdy folks) to supposed violators, thereby generating a binary narrative—not
unlike what they did with the war on drugs—where anyone who complained or did
not cooperate was aggravating the pandemic situation, while those who complied
constituted the “good citizenry.”
Sadly,
in all three songs, there is not a single call for mass testing, nor is there,
at the very least, a questioning of the myriad controversial ways regulations
were enforced. One can thus read this as an avoidance, on the part of the
artists or composers, of highly charged political issues—specifically those
which relate to criticisms leveled at the government. There is, unfortunately,
an extolling of obedience echoed in their lyrics. In the chorus of S1, for
example, the lyrics mention how there is “no need to worry” (“Ay’g kabalaka”) if we simply follow
the rules (“mopatuo lang ta”) and
just stay home (“Kung magpuyo lang sa
gyud ta / Wa’y ‘blema”). Also, the phrase “a beautiful life” (taken from
the original lyrics) is linked with staying put and therefore complying and not
exacerbating the situation, as illustrated by the following sequence:
It’s a beautiful life kung magpuyo lang sa ta
[It’s a beautiful life if we just stay
put]
(Aah! ECQ!)
Ang tanang problema di
na nato pun-an pa
[Let’s not add to all these problems].
In
the next line, “It’s a beautiful life kung
di ta magpada” [It’s a beautiful life if we don’t let ourselves get carried
away],” the use of the term magpada—short
for magpadala, meaning to allow
oneself to get carried away emotionally—reads quite ambiguous in the given
context, though considering it is followed by another instance of “Ang tanang problema di na nato pun-an pa,”
one can surmise that the emotion the song is trying to warn its listeners
against is anger or at the very least discontent, both associated with the “reklamador” critics of the
administration.
Obedience
is stressed even more, albeit with fewer lines, in S2, where the phrase “Patuo sa mando sa mga nagdumala” (Obey
the mandate of those who govern) is repeated twice within the song. The
succeeding lines then convey a similar message:
Kay ang virus di
makita, Di masumpo kon di magpatuo
[Because the virus cannot be seen, it
cannot be fought if we don’t obey]
Ang pagtuman sa balaod
nga gimando sa gobyerno
[Following the law that the government
mandates]
Notions
of discipline tie closely with obedience. The neoliberal state’s success and
continued existence are greatly contingent on the submissiveness of the
citizenry, their “quietist acceptance” of things as they are, given that
alternate currents of thought will likely interrogate the inhumane, profit-driven
system of the dominating corporatist order. It should come as no surprise,
then, that a line in S2 posits that the solution to this crisis (“Masulbad ra ning problemaha”) lies in
the widespread practicing of discipline by the public (“Kon naa lang tay disiplina”). Similarly, the constant, forceful
repetition of the line “Ay’g kumpyansa,
bai, kon di ka gusto mamatay” (Don’t risk it, friend, if you don’t want to
die) in the same song conflates notions of “risk-taking” (that is, going out)
with not adhering to quarantine protocols, which, according to the song’s
logic, results in death.
Because
the role of the government in a neoliberal state is reduced to merely
preserving the institutional framework that aids and abets the liberation of
individual entrepreneurial freedoms (Harvey, 2005), instead of providing
quality state services in the areas of health care, education, and housing, for
example, the responsibility of addressing large-scale concerns is ultimately
passed on to the individual citizen, who is, only when convenient for the
powers that be, lumped together with a vague public. The opening stanza of “Dungan,” where the titular word
appears, is illustrative of this, proclaiming how “we stand together” (“Dungan tag barog”), “we rise together”
(“Dungan tag saka”) “amid the trials”
(“Sa mga pagsulay”), but a hint of disobedience
or lack of discipline on the part of citizens (“Kon magpabaldong”)—and not, say, poor government investment in
health services—will imminently lead to everyone dying (“Aw, dungan ta matay”).
S3,
released on the first of August and thus likely produced at the height of the
COVID-19 situation in Cebu, when MECQ was reinstated by Duterte after some
weeks of GCQ, is a song that “calls for unity and solidarity” among Cebuanos in
riding out the health and economic crisis brought about by the pandemic, and
serves as an anthem of sorts encouraging Cebu to “rise back to progress.”5
However, it is, I would argue, the most egregious among the three when it comes
to propounding neoliberal values.
As
early as the opening verse, the word “negligence” (the composers’ official
translation of “pasagdan”) comes up
in relation to “us,” “Unta di na nato ni
pasagdan” (We hope we won’t be negligent this time) (Cebu Citizens
Initiative, 2020), as if the virus’s spread was the fault of a “disobedient”
citizenry rather than a national government that proved slow in its response
earlier in the year, and sidelined medical experts in favor of retired
generals. This is immediately followed by lines that hint at the importance of
obedience and unity, in a period of community quarantine marked by a growing
frustration among Cebuanos:
Walay di masulbad kung
tanan
[There’s nothing we can’t solve]
Magkahiusa lang
[If we all come as one]
Sa pagpakabana
[In showing that we care]
Alang sa usa’g usa…
[For each other…]
The
chorus of this song also embodies a shifting of responsibility, with its
pointing to “we” the public as our “only salvation”: “Kita ra gyud ang atong kaluwasan.” It also presents questions as
to who will help us, carry us, and remain steadfast for us amid this crisis…
Kinsa pa man diay ang
magtinabangay?
[Who else will help us?]
Kinsa pa man diay ang
mag-inunongay?
[Who will be steadfast?]
Kinsa pa man diay ang
magdayong?
[Who else will carry us?]
…before
concluding that only we (“kita”) can
do these ourselves: “Kita ra gihapon,
bai” (If not each other, my friend). There is, I would like to point out,
an ironic truth to this line, as the relative absence of government or its
largely haphazard response in a crisis, eventually necessitates a reliance
among individuals on each other, without much-needed governmental aid.
A
notable feature of this song, in keeping with its calls for “unity and
solidarity” is its emphasis on the economy—something absent in the two previous
songs, which were more concerned with conveying information and quelling
disinformation. After months of restricted movement and shuttered
establishments, the economy was beginning to strain, and local government units
were running out of funds to handle relief efforts. (Meanwhile, the national
government around this time was focusing on other priorities, such as passing
the highly contentious Anti-Terror Law, making moves aimed at shutting down the
country’s leading broadcasting network, and applying for more loans from abroad
that didn’t seem to amount to much.) In the following stanza, citizens are
called on (“giawhag”) to reclaim lost
livelihoods and resume the progress of Cebu City. This is despite the fact that
the national government had not provided even the least bit assurance that they
had capitalized on the stricter measures enforced months prior and had gotten
the virus under control in the same way that other countries (such as Vietnam,
which had already reopened by this point) had done:
Bawion tang panginabuhi
nga napagan
[Let’s reclaim our livelihoods that
were bogged down]
Balikon ta ang kanhing
natagmtaman nga kauswagan
[Let’s resume the former progress
enjoyed]
Ning atong dakbayan
[By our city]
Maong giawhag ang tanan
[Which is why we call on everyone]
The
government’s negligence and less-than-scientific approach ultimately put its
most vulnerable citizens in a position where they had to report back to their jobs or resume with their livelihoods
after at least two months of no income, thereby putting themselves and their
families at risk. By the second half of 2020, the government appeared to change
its tune—from mandating stay-at-home orders to encouraging people to go back to
working, spending, and consuming for the sake of kick-starting a declining economy.6
This gambling of people’s lives in the service of capital has since become a
matter of policy choice in the face of the resurgence of cases in the first
quarter of 2021, as government officials, particularly in Cebu, repeatedly
thumbed down calls from medical experts to reinstate stricter measures, as the
economy will only “suffer” as a result (see report by Lorenciana, 2021). By
invoking “the former progress we enjoyed,” S3 is essentially eliciting a
nostalgia for a pre-pandemic era defined by a narrow, market-centric,
capital-driven view of progress and development—one which Cebu, being one of
the wealthier cities outside of Metro Manila, supposedly enjoyed, and which can
only be revived if said market and the practices that undergirded it, however unsustainable
and unjust, are resuscitated. This thus gives voice to the network of solely
economic relationships that, according to neoliberal political philosophy,
binds all human relations.
IV. Conclusion: The Role of Capital
beyond the Lyrics
In
his 2013 book, Postcolonial Theory and
the Specter of Capital, political scientist Vivek Chibber places a
particular import on looking into capital’s role in examining and explaining
various phenomena, in an age where capitalist tendencies have spread all across
the globe as to become “universalized.” While he admits that such an approach
runs the risk of pigeonholing all forms of analysis into “economic
reductionism,” applying this view to the three song lyrics under study would
not in any way deviate from Mojares’s and Ryan and Ingram’s positions that
music must not be studied in isolation.
In
the preceding section, I illustrated how the three examined song lyrics not
only echoed regime rhetoric with their stressing of obedience and discipline,
but also propounded the neoliberal corollary values of individual
responsibility and political apathy. I would like to conclude this essay with a
personal supposition that may also very well serve as a recommendation for
future study—one that somewhat goes beyond the lyrics, as well as my
scholarship in the field of literature and cultural studies.
One especially striking element of S1’s music video is that it ends with the following caption: “Thank you to the angel donor who funded the production of this version.” More alarming is the inclusion of the statement “Let’s all heal as one” in S2’s lyrics, which is obviously a blatant nod to the Duterte administration’s slogan in its pandemic efforts, one that insidiously discourages any form of dissent or complaint, not just with regard to quarantine protocols but government policy in general. That S3 also lends an emphasis to the economy and the “progress” associated with Cebu, despite poor efforts by the government in ensuring the safety and well-being of workers and the larger citizenry, hints at the significant involvement of capital forces.
Perhaps,
then, a potential research springing off this one could look into the funding
or patronage of these songs’ productions, and investigate the politics—or
absence thereof—of the institutions and personalities involved. The
preliminaries, however, which I’ve sketched out here, appear far from
encouraging. Broadly speaking, they suggest that right-wing proclivities for an
obedience to authority and a preference for individual responsibility are well-ingrained
in the “common sense” processes of Cebuano musical creatives so as to be worked
into song compositions and performed for a wide audience on social media. More
troublingly, they are indicative of how neoliberal philosophy and anti-politics
have prevailed in the Cebuano milieu, going unquestioned even in the realm
where critical thought and subversion ought to have the greatest potential: the
arts. Indeed, ideology is most effective when it is invisible.
Notes
1. In a July 2020 online conference organized by the University of San Carlos Museum, titled “Gahi’g Ulo: Deciphering Cebuano Culture and Society amid the Global Pandemic,” sociologist and USC professor Dr. Zona Amper explains how the concept of “home” in the context of informal settlements or urban slum areas is “not restricted to a house, but extended to the common spaces within the community due to limited spaces within their houses.” She also adds that “stay-at-home” orders for these residents meant not being able to work, and thus not being able to provide for their daily needs.
2. Journalist Carlos Maza (2020) argues that a good part of why anti-politics makes for such effective propaganda is because it latches on to many stories we subscribe to about what power dynamics are supposed to look like; i.e., “the lone badass standing up against the evil empire,” as seen in big-budget Hollywood franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games.
3. A popular pro-Duterte meme that continues to circulate on Facebook amid the pandemic reads, “No matter how much you hate the government, do not wish for its failure. When it fails, we die, or one of our loved ones dies. We’re on one boat. If you want a better Philippines, stop acting like you are better than the president. Stop complaining and be a better Filipino.” From the profile of Katarina Faune, shared on 17 September 2020.
4. English translations for the lyrics of both “Wa’y ‘Blema (ECQ Version)” and “Dungan” were provided by the author of this paper, with corrections suggested by Dr. Erlinda Alburo. For “Kinsa Pa Man Diay?” translations were already made available in the music video.
5. From the music video’s caption, found on the Facebook page of the Cebu Citizens Initiative.
6. The Department of Tourism’s Ingat Angat campaign, launched in October, was a clear example of this.
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