Cheek December 18, 2006
THAT WAS ONE EYE-POPPING PICTURE I saw on the front page of the Inquirer last Friday. It featured Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as part of the traditional Belen, which features the Nativity scene. She is laughing gaily beside the figures of St. Joseph, St. Mary and the Christ child.
It’s a testament to Lupita Kashiwahara’s growing alienation from the real world—this is apparently her brainchild—that she can think of this. I mean, you must be a little out of this world, if not out of your mind, to imagine peace on earth and goodwill to men is the sentiment that will invade the minds of most Filipinos upon seeing this.
I can imagine that most Filipinos would think the current resident of Malacañang more properly belongs to a life-sized tableau of the Garden of Eden, as the third character there after Adam and Eve, the one slithering in the branches of the apple tree. Who knows? Maybe Kashiwahara thought her master and commander looked sufficiently doll-like to blend with the figurines. Or maybe she thought that her boss and employer by her actual life size could be made to resonate with the aura of the Santo Niño. If she did, she is wrong. The only thing the alien figure in the Nativity scene is likely to suggest to most Filipinos this Christmas, particularly the folk of Albay, is El Niño and/or La Niña.
Maybe, that is a horrendously un-Christmas-y thing to say, but truly all that Kashiwahara’s idea of a Christmas gift to the nation gives is a study in contrast. It is no more and no less than the study in contrast her subject gives every time she tries to associate herself with Jose Rizal. Which GMA has a bizarre and rather cruel way of doing. It’s cruel because the first she did it was on Rizal Day 2002 when she vowed she would not run for president. She has since made it a point to go to the Rizal Shrine every time she goes abroad, and to Rizal activities, such as the unveiling of the first-edition copies of the “Noli” and “Fili.” Poor Rizal. Like I keep saying, the only thing they have in common is height.
Ditto with the Christ-child.
Rizal was above all about generosity and altruism. Mythically, he proved that—by throwing his other slipper into the river after he had lost his first one so that whoever got them would have a pair. Historically, he proved that—by dying for his beliefs in the fields of Bagumbayan, now called the Luneta, where Pagcor, milking cow of corrupt officials notably for elections, just held one an activity. Though he was easily the best and brightest indio God put on this spot of earth, he gave up his life for his countrymen.
If GMA is generous, only Mike and Mikey Arroyo know about it. If she is altruistic, only Joe de Venecia and his minions in the House of Representatives, chiefly the Bicolanos and the Mindanaoans—like the two Prosperos—know about it. At least until she did an about-face, when she realized their project was so unpopular she left all of them in a lurch. If any or all of them are the best and brightest that God has put on this spot of earth, only the third character in the Garden-of-Eden scene knows about it.
The Nativity is above all about honesty and authenticity. What is the Nativity story, as a recent movie about it reminds us? It is that God came to earth not as a powerful Roman emperor or an influential Jewish Pharisee but as a lowly son of a carpenter who kept the company of the dregs of the earth—lepers, prostitutes and plebeians. It is that God was born under circumstances not unlike the one in Infanta a couple of Christmases ago and the one in Albay today, in the vise of winter, fleeing from the murderousness of a paranoid king and left out in the cold by the contempt of innkeepers, in the bosom of a barn made for animals. It is that Three Kings journeyed from far away bearing gifts and following a burning star which really lay not in the sky but in their hearts, which was the star of discernment, which enabled them to espy divinity in that desolation.
The Nativity story is above all a story about the all-powerful and the all-bountiful relinquishing power and wealth to give the world to understand what power and wealth really mean. Namely, that power is not what you wield with your hand, it is what you yield to in your conscience. Namely, that wealth is not what you fling before the world like scraps of meat to snarling dogs, it is what you cherish in your heart like friends or lovers. The Nativity story is not about pomp and circumstance and the external trappings of glory, it is about swaddling clothes and mangers—grand words for the impoverished articles to be found in places God forgot—and the truth and beauty to be found in that deceptive repulsiveness.
The Nativity story is about what is real and what is fake, it is about what is true and what is false, it is about what is sublime and what is petty—and the divine spark in our souls that gives us the power to tell the one from the other.
If the “as-herself” character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Jerusalem tells a story about someone willing to give up power to teach the world the real meaning of power, only they know about it. If the as-herself character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Nativity tells a story about someone stripping herself of all worldly possessions to show the world the true meaning of wealth, only they know about it. If the as-herself character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Incarnation tells a story about the divine light that enables us to separate the gold from the dross, the original from the pirated version, the authentic from the fake, only they know about it.
If I recall right, Christ’s remark was, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” It wasn’t “The cheek shall do so.”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=38870
It’s a testament to Lupita Kashiwahara’s growing alienation from the real world—this is apparently her brainchild—that she can think of this. I mean, you must be a little out of this world, if not out of your mind, to imagine peace on earth and goodwill to men is the sentiment that will invade the minds of most Filipinos upon seeing this.
I can imagine that most Filipinos would think the current resident of Malacañang more properly belongs to a life-sized tableau of the Garden of Eden, as the third character there after Adam and Eve, the one slithering in the branches of the apple tree. Who knows? Maybe Kashiwahara thought her master and commander looked sufficiently doll-like to blend with the figurines. Or maybe she thought that her boss and employer by her actual life size could be made to resonate with the aura of the Santo Niño. If she did, she is wrong. The only thing the alien figure in the Nativity scene is likely to suggest to most Filipinos this Christmas, particularly the folk of Albay, is El Niño and/or La Niña.
Maybe, that is a horrendously un-Christmas-y thing to say, but truly all that Kashiwahara’s idea of a Christmas gift to the nation gives is a study in contrast. It is no more and no less than the study in contrast her subject gives every time she tries to associate herself with Jose Rizal. Which GMA has a bizarre and rather cruel way of doing. It’s cruel because the first she did it was on Rizal Day 2002 when she vowed she would not run for president. She has since made it a point to go to the Rizal Shrine every time she goes abroad, and to Rizal activities, such as the unveiling of the first-edition copies of the “Noli” and “Fili.” Poor Rizal. Like I keep saying, the only thing they have in common is height.
Ditto with the Christ-child.
Rizal was above all about generosity and altruism. Mythically, he proved that—by throwing his other slipper into the river after he had lost his first one so that whoever got them would have a pair. Historically, he proved that—by dying for his beliefs in the fields of Bagumbayan, now called the Luneta, where Pagcor, milking cow of corrupt officials notably for elections, just held one an activity. Though he was easily the best and brightest indio God put on this spot of earth, he gave up his life for his countrymen.
If GMA is generous, only Mike and Mikey Arroyo know about it. If she is altruistic, only Joe de Venecia and his minions in the House of Representatives, chiefly the Bicolanos and the Mindanaoans—like the two Prosperos—know about it. At least until she did an about-face, when she realized their project was so unpopular she left all of them in a lurch. If any or all of them are the best and brightest that God has put on this spot of earth, only the third character in the Garden-of-Eden scene knows about it.
The Nativity is above all about honesty and authenticity. What is the Nativity story, as a recent movie about it reminds us? It is that God came to earth not as a powerful Roman emperor or an influential Jewish Pharisee but as a lowly son of a carpenter who kept the company of the dregs of the earth—lepers, prostitutes and plebeians. It is that God was born under circumstances not unlike the one in Infanta a couple of Christmases ago and the one in Albay today, in the vise of winter, fleeing from the murderousness of a paranoid king and left out in the cold by the contempt of innkeepers, in the bosom of a barn made for animals. It is that Three Kings journeyed from far away bearing gifts and following a burning star which really lay not in the sky but in their hearts, which was the star of discernment, which enabled them to espy divinity in that desolation.
The Nativity story is above all a story about the all-powerful and the all-bountiful relinquishing power and wealth to give the world to understand what power and wealth really mean. Namely, that power is not what you wield with your hand, it is what you yield to in your conscience. Namely, that wealth is not what you fling before the world like scraps of meat to snarling dogs, it is what you cherish in your heart like friends or lovers. The Nativity story is not about pomp and circumstance and the external trappings of glory, it is about swaddling clothes and mangers—grand words for the impoverished articles to be found in places God forgot—and the truth and beauty to be found in that deceptive repulsiveness.
The Nativity story is about what is real and what is fake, it is about what is true and what is false, it is about what is sublime and what is petty—and the divine spark in our souls that gives us the power to tell the one from the other.
If the “as-herself” character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Jerusalem tells a story about someone willing to give up power to teach the world the real meaning of power, only they know about it. If the as-herself character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Nativity tells a story about someone stripping herself of all worldly possessions to show the world the true meaning of wealth, only they know about it. If the as-herself character in Kashiwahara’s version of the new Incarnation tells a story about the divine light that enables us to separate the gold from the dross, the original from the pirated version, the authentic from the fake, only they know about it.
If I recall right, Christ’s remark was, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” It wasn’t “The cheek shall do so.”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=38870
posted by dqfan06 @ 9:13 AM
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